As a case manager, this is your best opportunity to directly and significantly support your client’s case. Here’s a more in-depth guide for writing a letter of support, and here’s an example of a strong one.
(Alternatively, a Third Party Function Report can be effective as well. Download one here.)
In short, a strong letter of support will do three things:
- Establish your relationship with your client:
- How long you have been working with the client?
- How often you meet with them?
- List all the ways in which you support them.
- Provide some context of the client.
- Where do they live? If in a program, explain how it’s supportive.
- If they have ever tried to work, explain why it didn’t work out.
- Anything about their history that relates to their ongoing mental illness, like traumatic experiences or hospitalizations, would be important to mention.
- Detail the client’s symptoms, behaviors, and specific functional limitations. Specifically, if you have witnessed or observed issues related to the following, it’s very important to mention:
- Understanding, remembering, or applying information
- Concentration, persistence, or pace
- Ability to get along with others
- Ability to adapt and manage themself (think: ADLs, being independent)
IMPORTANT: please send us an unsigned draft as a word document for review before finalizing with a signature. These cases are complicated, and we will need to review to ensure the facts are framed in as supportive a light as possible.
HUGE: if you are able to get their prescribing doctor or psychiatrist to contribute to the letter or co-sign it, it will carry that much more weight.
These don’t have to come from just case managers either. A willing therapist or other clinician would be an excellent source for a letter.
