Read more
Adult Protective Services (APS) is the social service system charged with aiding older people and disabled adults who are being mistreated by others or cannot meet their own basic needs for health and safety (self-neglect). These are America's most vulnerable citizens, and they often suffer for years, while remaining largely invisible to the greater world.
Written from the inside of APS, Mark Mehler's memoir of his seven years as a crisis case manager reveals a world that very few people see, and addresses why and how people do this work, what they take away from it and the price that they pay to do it.
Ranging from horrifying to uplifting and bizarrely funny, the stories recounted here witness human frailty and disaster, and the efforts of some dedicated caseworkers to stem that tide.
List of contents
Table of ContentsForeword by Kathleen Quinn
Introduction: Happiness Is No Gun
¿1.¿Welcome to Countertransference
¿2.¿Orphan in the Storm
¿3.¿Hidden Figures
¿4.¿Damned If You Do....
¿5.¿...And Damned If You Don't
¿6.¿A Crisis Manager Walks into a Bar...
¿7.¿APS Versus APS
¿8.¿In Harm's Way
¿9.¿That Guy Who Looks Like Felix
10.¿The Two Faces of Esther
11.¿If I Had a Rich Man
12.¿Naked Came the Stranger
13.¿Rules of Engagement
14.¿How Do You Solve a Problem Like Tobias?
15.¿Tender Mercies
16.¿WORST. CLIENT. EVER.
17.¿Both Sides Now
18.¿Thwarting the Gypsies
19.¿Wretched Refuse
20.¿Sons and Mothers
21.¿Smoothing Over the Humiliation
22.¿Who's That Hogging My Bathroom?
23.¿Celebrity Jeopardy
24.¿Tuesday in the Court with George
25.¿Terms of Endearment, or Disparagement
26.¿Nothing to It
27.¿Senior Lifesaving; Or, Hello, I Must Be Going
28.¿The Supporting Cast
29.¿Scammer's Delight
30.¿How'd I Get Here?
31.¿Change Is Gonna Come
32.¿Officious Channels
33.¿Journey's End
Epilogue: A Proclamation
Index
About the author
Mark Mehler is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in dozens of major newspapers, magazines and websites. He lives in Queens, New York.
