COU202 Assessment 2

Role Play of a Counselling Session and Written Reflection (60%)

Topic: Assessment & Intervention planning

Due Date: Refer to the specific dates below for each assessment component.

This assessment builds on your theoretical knowledge and aims to put that theoretical learning into practice. There are two parts to this assessment.

Part A: Interview and assessment (recorded for student use in Part B)

Part B: Critical reflection

Working together in groups of 2, each student must present a skills demonstration of a counselling session with an individual or family for assessment and intervention planning. This is to be recorded for you to use in your critical reflection.

Part A: Interview and assessment (25%)

Due: no later than week 10

The main criteria include:

Length: 15 minutes

To be recorded for you to use in your critical reflective essay

More information will be provided in class

Part B: Written reflective essay: (35%) Word Count: 2000 – 2200

Due: week 11

You are required to submit a critical self-reflection of your role as the counsellor, considering the theories and skills you used during the counselling session and drawing on the literature, class content, and skills practice in the tutorials.

Including the following:

Describe and explain how your role play followed the process for an assessment when working with an individual or family. Provide examples from your role play to illustrate your comments.

Describe and give examples of the counselling skills you used in your role play (using the information given in class and via the readings. You may also refer to the learning in Counselling theory and practice 1 in your first year)

Explain how you worked with the client to assess the situation and planned your intervention.

Include comments about referral, working with other professions if this is part of your intervention

Critically evaluate how you performed as the counsellor. What strengths and limitations did you observe? Where did you struggle and what impact did this have on the process of the session? What could you have done differently?

Comment on the ways in which you would use the professional supervision process to guide your work with the client

Use APA 7 referencing. Your reflective essay should include at least 8 (scholarly) journal articles read and/or textbook references. The format of your essay will be discussed in greater detail during tutorials.

Do NOT utilise sources such as www.tutor2u.com and other such web materials as these in no way constitute academic references for the purpose of your assignments. If you rely on such sources for theoretical support, you will be deemed NOT to have met the requirements of the assessment.

Case scenario:

Isabel telephones for assistance 6 months after the death of her stepfather, Andrew concerned about her mother, Ann aged 69.

Isabel is aged 50. Her father was killed in a car accident many years ago and her mother, Ann remarried to Andrew (Isabel’s stepfather) who died very peacefully at home from lung cancer six months ago aged 80. She says we all still miss him a lot.

Ann was born in New Zealand, and she has several brothers and sisters still in Wellington.

Ann and Andrew had been married for 47 years when Andrew died. Ann and Andrew lost a daughter Michelle to suicide when she was 24 years old.

Isabel’s stepbrothers are Alistair aged 43 age and Jean aged 36. Alistair lives in a nearby town to his mother as does Isabel, but Jean lives interstate.

Isabel says her mother Ann seems very frail. She has lost weight. She responds to questions very slowly and admits to crying frequently. She says her mother who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis is having more joint pain than usual. She is eating poorly because her appetite has decreased, since the death of her husband.

Isabel tries to visit her mother every day now if she can. She says her mother is just sitting there in a corner on her chair most of the time. She eats very little, and the house is a mess. She just doesn’t seem to care anymore and that is not like her at all. Isabel says that when she talks about her kids (Ann has 8 grandchildren), her mother occasionally brightens up but then she begins to cry. My brothers and I are very concerned.

You have had previous contact with this family when you were involved as a counsellor assisting Andrew and Ann following Andrew’s lung cancer diagnosis.

In offering assistance to this family, you may choose to base your role play on the first interview with Isabel or you may choose to base your role play on a family interview with all family members – Ann, Isabel, Alistair and Jean.