Question

For this assignment, imagine you have been contacted by an agency in your community to provide consultation on how they might improve their services to clients. The agency is concerned that clients with serious counseling issues are "falling between the cracks" when they are referred to others in the community for intensive treatment. Furthermore, the brief aftercare they provide is not accessible enough to sufficiently support clients as they re-integrate into the community.

1) Identify a population with mental health counseling needs as well as other needs, for example:

- People experiencing chronic or severe mental illnesses who also experience homelessness.

- Children with medical needs who also experience high anxiety.

- Elderly individuals who are socially isolated and depressed.

- Chemically dependent persons with recurring mental health crises.

2)Evaluate how the group you identified has been served in the history of clinical mental health counseling.

3) Describe the agency that is requesting consultation, specifying where their services are located within the continuum of care available in the community. Briefly outline the services they provide, such as outpatient services, inpatient services, partial hospitalization, or aftercare, and describe the other professionals or entities to whom they can refer clients for coordinated care.

4) Identify and describe the consultation theory, model, and strategies you would propose use to assist the agency in improving coordinated services for their clients.

5) Propose a counseling supervision model for the agency that describes roles and strategies for maintaining ethical and consistent client care.

6) Recommend additional steps professionals at the agency could take to advocate at the state or national level to reduce barriers that impede access, equity, and success for their client population.

Answer 1

Children with medical needs who experience high anxiety

Such children are seen as requiring assistance to cope and function in the society as well as the typical children. They are often seen as struggling and remaining isolated from the other children in various settings. One prominent reason is physical barriers that the children may be facing. Other than this the general lack of sensitivity amidst children nowadays arising out of stereotypes and prejudices is another cause for this lack of support.

In order to cater to this group, it is important to do a basic need assessment using frameworks to understand the various areas that are impacted in the life of a client. This will give a picture of exactly what sort of challenges are faced in the everyday life of the child. The basic level work needs to be conducted by mental health professionals wherein they create plans that include enhancing the ADL skills of the child. The same will then help the child cope within his environment by adapting to it and also enhance the self esteem. Counselors have been seen as working at different levels of intervention for such children including the primary- where they inculcate skills to cope better and adapt effectively as a measure of prevention, secondary- where they identify children who have concerns and engage in comprehensive assessments to diagnose using several frameworks, and lastly tertiary- Intervention is provided depending on the needs assessed so far in order to bring out the best in the child. This is done by enhancing the already existing strengths of the child.

Facilities such as outpatient services, inpatient services, partial hospitalization, and aftercare services are also available for children who have different needs. Also special schools that aim at providing integrated services to the children are created for their well-being. The same is not done with a purpose of isolating these children, but rather for their better adaptation & functioning within the society. They also equip children with certain vocational & occupational skills so as to help the gain employment. Some organizations also have a provision of employing their clients within, i.e. absorbing them as employees once they are trained enough.