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.

          Chemically dependent persons with recurring mental health crisis is identified as those in need of mental health counseling as well as other needs. For example, social support. Supose an agency is formed for this group that is concerned about the neglect ("falling between the cracks") of these clients and aftercare of a hospitalization or when they enter the social setting after treatment. First of all let us discuss about the mental health issues of this population.

Chemical dependence can be of different types, it can be drug dependence or other substances (opiods, heroine, cannabis etc.) dependence. People with chemical dependence can have anxiety, depressive and suicidal tendencies, psychotic illness (hallucination and delusions) etc. These illnesses can be life threatening if a person takes chemicals in excess. These people are neglected by society, family and friends. They might have financial and social crisis along with sever health issues. There are many addiction institutions for their support but getting admitted in the institution and completing treatment is challenging among this population. Relapse is major challenge among people with chemical dependence. After treatment, they can be exposed to the same chemical, chances of relapse increase or we can say success rate is low. Failure in treatment and high expenses can cause one to be neglected by their family, friends and centres as well. The motivation level of the client also decreases due to these reasons. A counselor can help give resources (NA meetings being available in their community) as well as skills needed to help one not to relapse. Cognitive behavioral therapy, family counseling, and other therapy approaches can help people recovering from addiction stay clean ("counseling ," 2017, para. 2). Psychotherapy can also treat the other mental health conditions that often contribute to addiction ("counseling ," 2017, para. 2). Chemical dependence affects all areas (personal, social, and professional) of the person.

People who have an addiction usually have some other type of mental illness, these two together are called a co-occuring disorder. In the past the medical field was not aware of co-occuring diagnosis and were only treating one illness. If someone was a drug addict and suffering from depression the professionals would only treat their depression. This caused for the addict to use drugs more, even though their depression was being treated. All illnesses must be treated together or the person will not be successful with recovery/treatment.

Around the 1980s, however, researchers and medical professionals began studying the ways that addiction and mental health issues interacted with each other ("Addiction," 2014, para. 3). A survey from 1989 suggests an even higher connection between mental disorders and smoking addiction, with more than 70% of all respondents listing that they have both a mental health issue and a smoking addiction ("Addiction," 2014, para. 3).

Now the medical field is understanding co-occurring disorders and mental health professionals are using intergrated treatment. After these disorders have been identified the counselor may use a holistic treatment and treat all mental health issues as well as the addiction.

Counseling Services across the Continuum

************************************PLEASE ANSWER THE PARAGRAPH BELOW, ONLY************************

1) 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.***answer this question based on the below.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

Please review below and base the agency off of one that has contacted you, as a counselor... SEE BELOW

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.

.

Answer 1

Falling between the cracks is the most common problem these days as counselling therapies are limited to a certain time and time gaps are also there in between the sessions. Thus according to the scientific researches clients should not be left free after the counselling sessions as it was in the earlier to recope with the therapies applied, but to give some tasks and some practices which client should do in between the therapy sessions. For example- the case can be taken of this agency that they are facing the problems like this i.e. after they have given a therapy to a certain client who is addicted somehow the clients situations improved but as the time passes , client shows less urged active behaviour and may finally drawn to the addiction again. Here two things are to be noticed that somehow root cause of this addiction to that patient is either different and hidden which can easily be tracked by the talk therapy and secondly, if not also then therapies which are applied in case of addiction, for say aversive therapy, are limited to a certain time, thus client should be advised to change some habits of their daily routine life , for say ..to awake in the early morning, or to take a morning walk in the plesant atmosphere or breathing exercises under any yoga expert . Reason is that the intake of more oxygen reduces the stress levels in the brain and due to certain chemical reactions client may start thinking out of the box which nourishes both the mind and the body.