Counseling Specializations and Multidisciplinary Teams

Overview

Counseling professionals from different specializations frequently need to work together to provide effective services to students, families, and individual clients. This assignment asks you to address this need in two parts, using what you have learned in this course so far. In Part 1, focus on theory and concepts, creating your own description and Assessment of your specialization, based on the historical and philosophical development of the counseling profession. In Part 2, apply these ideas to a particular case situation, focusing on how a professional in your specialization might collaborate with professionals in other specializations to help meet the needs of the client.

Directions

Part 1

Evaluate the role of your specialization within the field of counseling, beginning with your own description of the field itself, including both the history and the philosophies involved, explaining where your specialization fits, and describing how your specialization might collaborate with one other specialization that you describe. Cite the articles or other sources you use for the basis of your ideas.

In this part, specifically address the following questions:

• How would you describe the key philosophies of the counseling profession: wellness, resilience, and prevention? Choose a wellness model, and explain how that model impacts the way in which counselors view clients and the concerns brought to counseling, including the kinds of information counselors need to have about their clients.
• How have those key philosophies developed? Provide a brief historical perspective of the counseling profession focused on the key philosophies of wellness, resilience, and prevention. Include the beliefs and assumptions that support those philosophies.
• How did your specialization develop? Identify your preferred counseling specialization and describe how the specialization emerged or the profession developed, including the key ideas on which it is based.
• What other counseling specialization works well in collaboration with your specialization? Briefly explain the history of how this other specialization developed, highlighting the ways in which it complements yours.

Part 2

Now, select one of the following two cases, either Ashley or Paul, as a foundation for illustrating how professionals in different specializations might work together to meet the needs of the client you choose:

Ashley

Ashley, a 12-year-old girl, admits to one of her teachers that she feels very depressed. Her mother has recently remarried, and Ashley is having difficulty adjusting to life with her stepfather and his two children. She is not able to concentrate in class or do her homework.

Paul

Paul, a 32-year-old man, seeks counseling at a community mental health center. He has recently returned from his third deployment to a combat zone. He reports drinking frequently and feeling anxious. Paul’s wife has tried to reassure him that everything is fine, but he is reluctant to leave the house and has missed more than a week of work.

For this part, apply what you have learned about counseling and how professionals can work together to explain how you might collaborate with a professional in another specialization to serve the client you chose.

In this part, complete the following:

• Analyze how professionals from your specialization and from the other specialization you examined in Part 1 might collaborate to benefit the person and family in the case study you chose. 
  • Describe the role and function of each of the professionals involved.
  • Identify the characteristics that make each role unique and make them effective counselors for this case.
• Assess how to ensure good collaboration and communication between the professionals representing the two specializations. 
  • Identify the type of outside agency that could Help this client to promote optimal wellness, providing two examples.
  • Explain the standards or criteria that you would use to evaluate the collaboration.

Review the scoring guide given in the resources to make sure you understand how this assignment will be graded.

Other Requirements

Your paper must meet the following requirements:

• Resources: Cite at least three resources from the professional literature that you use as the basis of your ideas for Part 1.
• APA formatting: Resources and citations must be formatted according to current APA style.
• Font and Font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
• Length of Paper: Doing a thorough job on this assignment is likely to require approximately 3–4 typed, double-spaced pages.
• Turnitin: You are required to submit your final version of this paper to Turnitin to generate a final report prior to submitting the assignment for grading. From the Turnitin tool, first submit to the draft link to check your work for any necessary edits. Once the paper is finalized and all edits have been made, submit your final paper to the Final report option for the assignment. Please be advised it can take up to a day to obtain the percentage from Turnitin. When your paper is downloaded and viewable in Turnitin, save the originality report. Refer to the Turnitin Tutorial: Viewing an Originality Report (linked in the Resources) for guidance. 
  1. Submit your assignment using the following file naming format: Your Name_AssignmentNumber_Assignment Title (example: Ima_Learner_u06a1_CounselingSpecialization).
  2. In the comment section, provide the percentage from the final Turnitin report (example: Final Turnitin percentage = 4%). Please be prepared to provide your faculty member with a copy of the Turnitin report should this be requested of you.