Group Counseling Plan With Children and Adolescents: Preparing your Group Counseling Plan With Children and Adolescents gives you an opportunity to apply what you are learning to situations you will encounter in clinical practice. Review the Scoring Guide before preparing and submitting your assignment.

For this assignment, you will develop two group counseling plans that can be used in your Middle Valley Counseling Proposal: one for children and one for adolescents. As described in this unit’s videos, many counseling groups for young people are growth-oriented groups—each individual’s growth and development is the focus. Members of the group may have symptoms of disorders, but a group can help individuals make changes more quickly by providing encouragement and chances to practice new behaviors.

First, you will describe a group that would benefit each of these clients a prototypical group member for each of the counseling groups you will be proposing. One background sketch should be for a child client; one should be for an adolescent client. Your hypothetical child client is a prospective member of your child counseling group. Your hypothetical adolescent client is a prospective member of your adolescent counseling group.

Second, you will design a counseling (see Counseling Children pages 605–606 for examples of how counselors work with groups of different ages).

Each of your two group proposals will succinctly address the following:

Prototypical Group Member: Summarize the background sketch for one of your group members, including developmental, temperamental, and academic information. Additionally, include the reason for referral to the group and your preliminary diagnosis.

Client’s Ecosystemic Context: Use a systems perspective to present information about the influence of family, community, and school on your client, including both stressors and supports.

Group Topic, Theory, and Rationale: Present the topic and explain why a group on this topic is needed. (See Table 18-2 in your text for possible small group topics for children and adolescents.) Describe how your hypothetical client could benefit from being in this group. Which counseling theory will provide the best support for the clinical needs of the group (including your focus child or adolescent)? (See Table 18-1 in your text for goals that are typical for each theoretical orientation.)

Group Objectives, Plan, and Sample Group Exercise: What specific, measurable, and reachable objectives will you have for the group members, given your chosen theory and time frame? One or two goals are appropriate. How long will each group session be? How often will you meet? How many sessions will you have? Incorporate information about developmental needs when planning the topic, frequency, and duration of the groups. Briefly describe one group exercise or technique you will implement that is developmentally appropriate, practical for your setting, consistent with your chosen theory, and helpful for achieving one of your group objectives. After describing the exercise, discuss your rationale for how it fits these criteria.

Legal and Ethical Issues Plan: Articulate a legal and ethical issues plan that presents the specific steps you will take to establish an ethical group counseling relationship with your child or adolescent clients, considering their presenting issues. Identify potential ethical or legal issues that could arise with this specific group, and briefly describe how you will handle each of these, referencing specific laws and ethical codes.

Use a minimum of five references, including your textbook. See the Resources for the Group Counseling Template that you will use to prepare this assignment. Your paper should be 5–7 pages in length, not including the title and references pages. No abstract is necessary.

Group Counseling Plan With Children and Adolescents Resources

• Group Counseling Plan With Children and Adolescents Scoring Guide.
• Group Counseling Template.
• APA Style and Format.

TEMPLATE

Group Counseling with Children and Adolescents

Author First Name Middle Initial Last Name

Capella University

Group Counseling With Children and Adolescents

This is your paper’s introduction. Note, however, that it does not have a heading; its position at the beginning of the body of the paper implies that it is the introduction. Instead, include the title of your paper centered at the top of the page, not bolded; it is not considered a heading. In the body of your paper, indent the first line of each paragraph. As always, use double spacing 12-point Times New Roman font. For the purposes of this assignment, simply replace this text with a brief paragraph in your own words stating that this paper presents two group counseling proposals for the Middle Valley Counseling Project.

Group Counseling Proposal for Child Clients: [Hypothetical Name of Group]

Prototypical Group Member

Here, summarize the background sketch for your adolescent client, including developmental, academic, family, social, and ecosystemic information about the influence of community, family and school systems as stressors and supports. Additionally, include the reason for referral to the group and your preliminary diagnosis that you developed in previous discussions.

Group Topic and Rationale

Explain here why a group on this topic needed. Describe how will your hypothetical client benefit from being in this group? (See Table 18-2 in your text for possible small group topics for children and adolescents.)

Theoretical Orientation and Rationale

Which counseling theory will provide the best support for the clinical needs of the group (including your focus child or adolescent)? See Table 18-1 in your text for goals that are typical for each theoretical Orientation.

Group Practicalities

Assume that you will be allowed to use the stage area at one of the schools in the Middle Valley project to conduct your groups. How long will each group be? How often will you meet? How many sessions will you have? (Consider developmental stages when planning the frequency and duration of the groups.)

Group Objectives

What specific, measureable, and reachable objectives will you have for the group members, given your time frame? One or two goals are appropriate.

Sample Group Exercise and Rationale

Describe one group exercise or technique you will implement that is developmentally appropriate, practical for your setting, and consistent with your chosen theory. After describing the exercise, discuss your rationale for how it fits these criteria.

Group Evaluation

At the conclusion of the group, how will group members and the group leader evaluate progress?

Legal and Ethical Issues Plan

Briefly articulate a legal and ethical issues plan that presents the steps you will take to establish an ethical group counseling relationship with your child clients. Identify the key potential ethical and legal issues that could arise with your groups and describe how you will handle each of these, referencing specific laws and ethical codes.

Group Counseling Proposal for Child Clients: [Hypothetical Name]

Prototypical Group Member

Summarize the background sketch for your adolescent client, including developmental, academic, family, social, and ecosystemic information about the influence of community, family and school systems as stressors and supports. Additionally, include the reason for referral to the group and your preliminary diagnosis that you developed in previous discussions.

Group Topic and Rationale

Why is a group on this topic needed? How will your hypothetical client benefit from being in this group? (See Table 18-2 in your text for possible small group topics for children and adolescents.)

Theoretical Orientation and Rationale

Which counseling theory will provide the best support for the clinical needs of the group (including your focus child or adolescent)? See Table 18-1 in your text for goals that are typical for each theoretical Orientation.

Group Practicalities

Assume that you will be allowed to use the stage area at one of the schools in the Middle Valley project to conduct your groups. How long will each group be? How often will you meet? How many sessions will you have? (Consider developmental stages when planning the frequency and duration of the groups.)

Group Objectives

What specific, measureable, and reachable objectives will you have for the group members, given your time frame? One or two goals are appropriate.

Sample Group Exercise and Rationale

Describe one group exercise or technique you will implement that is developmentally appropriate, practical for your setting, and consistent with your chosen theory. After describing the exercise, discuss your rationale for how it fits these criteria.

Group Evaluation

At the conclusion of the group, how will group members and the group leader evaluate progress?

Legal and Ethical Issues Plan

Briefly articulate a legal and ethical issues plan that presents the steps you will take to establish an ethical group counseling relationship with your child clients. Identify a few key ethical and legal issues that could arise with your groups, and describe how you will handle each of these, referencing specific laws and ethical codes.

References

(Include at least five sources that you used in your assignment. You may include your textbook. The reference below provides an example citation for an article.)

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume#(issue#), xx–xx.

Readings

Complete the following:

Read Chapter 18, “Group Counseling With Children,” in Counseling Children, on pages 583–617. This chapter reviews how to form a group, the group counseling process, and how to do a group crisis intervention.

Complete one of the following:

· Read Thompson’s 2011 article, “The Evolution of a Children’s Domestic Violence Counseling Group: Stages and Processes,” from The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, volume 36, issue 3, pages 178–201. This article describes a group for young children who have experienced domestic violence. The case study uses illustrations from the children’s responses to show how the group process unfolded.

· Read Rosselet and Stauffer’s 2013 article, “Using Group Role-Playing Games With Gifted Children and Adolescents: A Psychosocial Intervention Model,” from International Journal of Play Therapy, volume 22, issue 4, pages 173–192. This article describes a group using role-playing games, based on Adlerian theory, for enhancing social development and social interest in gifted adolescents.

Audiovisual Media

The following video, used with permission from Psychotherapy.net, shows adolescent group counseling sessions. For this activity, watch four segments, as detailed below. Use the menu to the right of the video player to navigate to each segment.

In these excerpts, Dr. Sam Steen and Dr. Sheri Bauman co-facilitate a diverse group of eighth graders. You will see how rapport is established, expressive art activities are used in a group, and how the facilitators use a range of methods to engage members of the group. Group members discuss family, relationships, and cultural issues. The descriptions below give context for each segment:

Group Counseling With Adolescents: A Multicultural Approach.

Session 1. (39 Minutes). Transcript.

This is the first of eight sessions to be conducted over a two-day period. In this session, Sam and Sheri use two activities to relieve anxiety and introduce the group leaders and members to each other. The first activity is relatively simple and only requires the group member to share superficial information. The second activity allowed the group members to reveal more personal information if they chose to do so. Group members review the norms that were established in the information session and also discuss confidentiality.

Session 6. (48 minutes). Transcript.

This session focuses on the Quadrant Activity, designed to get teens talking about their experiences with discrimination. At the beginning of the session, the leaders take a moment to address a group member who expressed feeling offended and upset in a previous session. Additionally, part of the session is spent addressing something that is going on in the group that is making the group members uncomfortable.

Session 6 Processing. (9 minutes). Transcript.

Continue to watch how the counselors go through processing the session by reviewing what is happening and discussing what to do in the group’s last session.

Session 7. (57 minutes). Transcript.

This is the last working session of the group. The leaders first check in with the members. Then they lead a discussion on which identities the group members feel are most important in defining who they are and the stereotypes that are associated with these identities.

Session 8 Processing. (13 minutes). Transcript.

The final excerpt shows the leaders reflecting on the group, what went well, and how they would improve the group next time.

Optional Readings

The following may be helpful in understanding this unit’s topics:

· Read Garner, Bruce, and Stellern’s 2011 article, “The Goal Wheel: Adapting Navajo Philosophy and the Medicine Wheel to Work With Adolescents,” from The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, volume 36, issue 1, pages 62–77. This article describes how concepts from Navajo philosophy were integrated into a group counseling model to increase a sense of self-worth among diverse adolescents.

· Read Cannon, Hammer, Reicherzer, and Gilliam’s 2012 article, “Relational-Cultural Theory: A Framework for Relational Competencies and Movement in Group Work With Female Adolescents,” from Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, volume 7, issue 1, pages 2–16. This article describes a group intervention to address relational aggression, including cyberbullying, among adolescent girls.