Case description document

A community mental health center includes a licensed clinical social worker, a psychologist who provides testing and other assessments, a child therapist and a staff of five counselors. The center also has a relationship with a psychiatrist at a nearby Free Clinic. A 31-year-old single mother of three children (ages 9, 5 and 3), has been seeing her counselor for four months and has become increasingly anxious over the past weeks. In the last few sessions she has disclosed that she feels frightened all of the time, is unable to sleep through the night, and worries that “something horrible is going to happen.” She admits to having a “couple of drinks” during the evening several times a week. She’s met with the social worker on two occasions to help her secure food stamps and get her children appointments at the local dental clinic. The children are now meeting for play therapy sessions with the child therapist during the time the mother is seeing her own counselor. She had met with the psychologist for an initial visit, but has not returned to complete any of the testing. At the end of the last appointment, the client disclosed that was very worried that she’s a horrible mother and is afraid that her children will be taken away and placed in foster care.

Memo from Child Therapist

I wanted you to know that I’ve been working with this client’s children for three sessions and the mother has granted permission for you to see the notes of the last session. Let me know if you want to talk about it.

Notes from child therapist’s session

Jane, age 9, Johnny, age 5, and Emma, age 3, met with me for their third counseling session. All children were dressed in clean clothing but Johnny was missing his socks and Emma’s shoes were falling apart. We spent the first half of the session working in the sand tray; the children then wanted to draw pictures. Themes that emerged for Jane centered on control and order; she appears to feel overly responsible for her siblings and very protective of her mother. Johnny’s play included themes of “secrets” and “hiding” – he is wary in the room and reluctant to engage in spontaneous play. Emma is very shy and has not spoken more than a few words in each of the sessions. During this session she was very tearful, which I have not previously observed. I believe it would be useful to consult with Jane’s and Johnny’s teachers.

Note from another counselor at the clinic

Hi – I wanted to let you know that your client showed up during the week thinking she had an appointment with you. I spoke with her for about 20 minutes – she was very anxious about some things a neighbor had said to her – but calmed down during our meeting. She appeared to have been drinking. I told her that I’d let you know she had been here.

Note from Psychologist

The client has still not returned to complete the assessment battery. I’d like to rule out Bipolar Disorder and further evaluate what I believe to be either paranoid or delusional thinking. There may be some Axis II features. Do you want me to write up a report now based on my meeting with her or should I wait until the full battery is complete?

Voicemail

This is Jane, the social worker. Your client called to ask if I could get her 3-year old girl enrolled in a day care program. She sounded very disoriented during the call. I’m considering asking Child Protective Services to evaluate the home. What do you think?

 

***USE THE ABOVE SCENARIO!!***

 

1. Describe how each of the professionals working in the counseling setting presented might collaborate in order to respond to any legal or ethical issues described in the scenario.
2. List the role of each professional in the counseling setting.
3. What function would each professional serve in terms of assessing or responding to any of the legal or ethical issues that may arise when working with this client?
4. Imagine that you are the counselor working with this student or client, and you will be serving as the lead person to coordinate efforts among the team of professionals at this setting.
5. Describe the strategies you would use to identify and implement effective collaboration between the professionals who may be working to provide assistance for this client. Include specific examples to illustrate some of the actions you would take.
6. Develop an effective communication to one of the professionals assisting your client:

For the student in the school counselor scenario: Compose a letter that you would send, with the student’s and his or her parents’ permission, to the school psychologist who will be seeing the student for an evaluation. In the letter, describe the reason for your referral, the relevant information you would like the psychologist to have about the student, and the information you’d like to receive after the evaluation is completed. (You may need to make up some of the details about the student and your work with him.)

 

Think carefully about information that would be useful for this professional to have about your client and any areas in which you want to respect the client’s privacy and confidentiality. Your letter should be approximately one page long and should be presented in the actual format you would use if you were sending it to the professional.

 

For the client in the mental health counselor scenario: You and the client agree she will meet with a psychiatrist for an evaluation. Compose a letter that you would send, with the client’s permission, to the psychiatrist. In the letter, describe the reason for your referral, the relevant information you would like the doctor to have about the client, and the information you’d like to receive after the evaluation is completed. (You may need to make up some of the details about the client and your work with her.)

 

Think carefully about information that would be useful for this professional to have about your client, and any areas in which you want to respect the client’s privacy and confidentiality. Your letter should be approximately one page long and should be presented in the actual format you would use if you were sending it to the professional.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

 

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.