Chelsea Stapleton has been an Easterseals Iowa team member for nine years and in three different departments. She currently is the case manager at Easterseals Iowa.
Easterseals Iowa Case Management promotes independence by partnering with individuals and their families. From achieving employment to securing housing, accessing healthcare to building a support system, we leverage individual and team strengths to reach each person’s goals. The Easterseals Iowa Case Management program welcomes a wide variety of children and adults with complex, multi-occurring needs.
When asked about the most fulfilling part of her job, Chelsea talks about the importance of relationships. “Relationship development is how to approach achieving goals each individual wants to complete. I have learned how every person with a disability is unique. There is a best way to approach each individual, but that approach looks different for each client I work with.”
Chelsea describes how she loves building relationships with the individuals she works with that go beyond a case manager-client relationship. “I love when my clients are excited to tell me about something new they are doing, or a place they are going. It makes me happy to know that my clients don’t think of me as just their case manager, but can sit and think, ‘this is a support person in my life’. My role as a case manager often is to help determine who the people are that will help my clients get to where they need to be, and barriers that may be holding them back,” Chelsea says.
She talks about how she collaborates with different people her clients can rely on in order to figure out the best way to support each client she works with.
When Chelsea is not visiting with her clients, she is taking phone calls or filling out paperwork pertaining to her clients. “There are days when I don’t get as much done as I plan to, because things happen that I wasn’t expecting. Somedays I plan to get a certain amount of paperwork done, but a client stops by or calls me and I spend time talking to them. This job is all about balancing priorities; completing the behind-the-scenes work that needs to get done, but also making sure I am there to support each individual 100% of the time.”
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