week 8

            Last week’s class activity was interesting and I found that I quickly became more knowledgeable with the time we spent searching for job options for our character.  At first, I was overwhelmed and confused by all the options and different resources.  After working through the sites and exploring each link a little, I was able to gain a better understanding of how to maneuver each site.  I feel being exposed to material like this at a younger age would have been extremely beneficial in my own career development.  One great positive was the ability to easily been informed and access the similar occupations when selecting a specific field.  I can only imagine how helpful this would have been for me and could be for others.  It was helpful to be able to see what each number meant in the categorization processes and how we may or may not like certain fields.  I also found it extremely helpful that the class activity exposed us to the “job zones” for each occupation.  This explains the degree of education or skills for the specific occupation being explored.  The SVP explained the amount of time it would take to be well prepared for the chosen occupation.  Learning this information and how to access it will be very informative and important to share with our future clients.

            I liked reading section about working with people with disabilities.  It me think of the clients I work with everyday.  We often have to jump through hoops to find the training and resources available to have any make any progress made with career counseling.  Given some of the resources we recently have acquired, I may be able to offer some additional information to my coworkers.  Unfortunately, not every client we work with meet the requirements to work with those who specialize in vocational training (such as Office of Vocational Training) with the funding that the client may have.  These services can be costly and often people are denied the services.

            Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, can help counselors in all aspects of our careers.   The article discusses the importance of understanding our own biases.  We are often easy to pass judgment, assume one thing or another depending upon the situation or whom we are working with.  We so often have deep-seated feelings or experiences that impact our thoughts which ultimately influence the people we work with.   We may easily sway the client into one thing or another.  As cultures vary greatly, we may be unaware of the values one culture may have verse another culture.  We also are have become so used to our own culture that we tend to forget to be sensitive to the differences others may have.  Not everyone needs the extra personal space we like, not everyone likes eye contacts and talks loudly, and not everyone values the past, present, and future the same way that we do. 

References

Brown, D. (2007).  Career information, career counseling, and career        development  (9^h ed.).  New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Byars-Winston, A. M., & Fouad, N. A. (2006). Metacognition and multicultural       competence: Expanding the culturally appropriate career counseling             model. Career Development Quarterly, 54(3), 187-201.

Week 9

             As someone who works with people who will be or are considered to be special needs in terms of their career, I believe it is a very important topic. There is a stigma that persons with diagnoses like Autism are very limited in the work that they can do. Usually we see people with visible diagnoses in low paying jobs, but I believe we need to make more room for all people in a variety of jobs. I would never encourage the kids that I work with to either not get a job or to aim low. I want them to have a job that is just as fulfilling as the one that I want for myself.

            I also think about the family members that I have that fall into the special needs category. The LGBTQ community is also one that I am sensitive to. With brothers that are gay, I know that they fear discrimination. The work environment can be stressful for them. My brother never knows when or if it will be OK for him to “Come out” at work. He has typically either waited a while until he has created rapport or will tell people selectively based on whom he thinks will be accepting of it. Feeling like you need to hide a part of your life from coworkers could lead to a stressful and unsatisfactory job. Even though my mother is only 56, I am also concerned about how she fits into the aging population. She wants to change jobs, but it has been very difficult for her. I worry that her age will hurt her chances. Knowing my mom, she certainly is just as capable of hard work as people who are much younger than her.

            I appreciated the activity we did in class this week. We live in an increasingly diverse world and we need to ensure that we are able to best meet the needs of all clients. Doing the case study assignment helped us to see how we will practically take ethnicity into account during a counseling session.

            In the latter part of the reading, I found the section on career coaching interesting. I can see how even the language used for the title could draw people in to use this type of service. A coach sounds much more personal than a therapist. When I think of coaching, I think of someone who works along side of me and who is like a cheerleader. This type of informal approach could be appealing to people who are put off by typical therapy. That being said, the lack of certification or license needed could be a little scary. Many people looking into career coaching may naively receive help from someone who is not qualified to give it, and thus, may waste their time and money. I think it would be helpful if career coaches received a certification to ensure that they have a wide knowledge base and that their clients can be comfortable in their expertise.

Brown, D. (2012).  Career information, career counseling, and career development

            (10^th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Week 9 Chapter 6 and 14

             Brown (2012) discussed in chapter 6 clients with special needs.  Often times when people hear special needs they think of people with disabilities, which have major classifications such as, mobility, hearing, vision, developmental disorders (mental retardation, autism, epilepsy, Down syndrome), seizure disorders, psychiatric disorders, and cognition (learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder) (Brown, p. 118, 2012).  I think that many people with disabilities are often labeled and that then has a stigma attached to it and sets those individuals apart from the rest of the population.  I think that it is also disheartening that people need to be labeled that need special accommodations just so they are afforded accommodations and the accommodations are available.  Brown (2012) discusses the term rehabilitation and vocational rehabilitation.  The rehabilitation aspect is the process where people with disabilities are prepared for work and life in general, and gradually overcoming many kinds of problems including physical disability, mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, delinquency, and other chronic difficulties or impairments.  I think that this aspect of the rehabilitation and preparation aspect of the career counseling aspect is important.  It is important because individuals with disabilities need to learn about how their lives in the workforce are going to be affected and how other people may perceive them.  The rehabilitation may involve services like education, improvement of physical functioning through therapy, enhancing psychological adjustment, increasing social adaptation, improving vocational capabilities, and identifying recreational activities (Brown, p. 119, 2012).  I think that the preparation aspect of the career counseling of individuals with disabilities is very important because they may have been born with the disability or may have recently become disabled and are not aware or accustom to the way that people in society or the workforce will react to them with a disability and how they will be able to function in the workplace.

             Brown (2012) discussed in chapter 14 about career counselors in private practice.  Career counselors as noted in Brown (2012) who choose private practice do so for a variety of reasons, including the opportunity to manage their own careers and increase their earnings (Brown, p. 313, 2012).  There are several qualifications for private practice, however then can provide guidance to many populations of people and even in a private practice the counselors still are required to abide by the code of ethics.  The rest of the chapter presented in Brown (2012) goes through the different aspects it requires to establish a private practice and by no means is it an easy process in my opinion.

Reference

Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10^th ed). New York : Pearson Education, Inc.

weekly insight

After reading chapter six, it really made me think about the different tyes of people we may run into in the counseling field. Many of us may come from areas where there is very little diversity and we are only used to coming in contact with a certain type or group of people. But in reality there are many peolpe who have vast differences from us and we must take into account each of those differnces. When working with people who are mentally ill, we must consider what types of jobs would be appropriate and accessible for them. Even with all the laws put into place for those who have osme type of restriction, it is even more necessary to advocate for this group of people because it may be hard to find employers willing to hire them. When working with women I think it is easy to forget the challenges that they may be facing. For example if they have children one must consider the availability times for the children to attend daycare. There may be many jobs available but if they do not fit into the times that care is provided, the woman may not be able to take the job. I think that as counselors it is easy to forget some of the other factors that exist when looking for work.

I never had considered the different qualifications for opening a private practice. From face value it seems like it is just like starting your own small business, but there are many factors that take part in doing so. Like the text says, there is more work to opening a practice then what school may prepare you for (Brown 2012). I wonder if programs will somehow incorporate a business aspect in to the curriculum to allow student to have a background knowledge to refer to when desiring to open their own practice.

 I also found myself being unfamiliar with the practice of career coaching. From face value I assumed that it was another term for career counseling, but in reality it has a more narrow focus. I am curious to how effective career coaching is in comparison to career counseling. To me I would think it would be more sensible to combine both together rather than keep them separate when they are very much related. I am curious to see if career coaching will really take off in the next 10-20 years.

Brown, D. (2012).  Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Metacognition and Multicultural Competence

     The article provided a lot of solid insight into the process of multicultural counseling. The takeaway message I was left with was the fact that many counselors experience the “over confidence effect.” This relates to the fact that many counselors overestimate their ability to utilize effective counseling techniques and are just as prone to making mistakes as is a lay person. The fact alone that minorities generally perceive that there are fewer opportunities available to them as well as more barriers to face indicates that any type of career counseling is not going to be a straight forward interaction. Despite this fact, many counselors arrive at “premature solutions” and perhaps do not fully address the needs of the client. When the authors mentioned the strategy of having the counselors examine their own personal values before engaging in a multicultural counseling session, I was reminded of my Therapeutic Crisis Intervention training I received while working as a TSS for Philhaven. One of the tenets of that intervention strategy involved the TSS examining their own internal state before responding to a client. Questions such as “how am I feeling?” and “how can I resolve this professionally?” were suggested as ways of focusing on your own mental health before responding to a potentially violent or escalating situation. It seems like this method of looking inward before making a judgment or a decision regarding a client is an important strategy for any person working in the field of mental health or counseling.

     One question I have in regards to multicultural career counseling is why is there limited available data for ethnic minorities? I understand that historically, white subjects were used because the researchers were predominantly white, but shouldn’t we have some more data by this point? Are there not a lot of minority career counselors? What about looking at data from other countries? I know America prides itself on its academics with our universities and history of scientific research, but it’s the 21^st century and clearly there are educated people all over the world so it seems odd that there isn’t more data available to us at this time. I think the methods provided in this article are very beneficial and could conceivably vastly improve the quality of counseling given to minorities, but I would still like to see some more empirical data instead of operating through a method that, despite being logical, does not have a lot of reliable data to back it up.

Byars-Winston, A. M., & Fouad, N. A. (2006). Metacognition and multicultural competence: Expanding the culturally appropriate career counseling model. Career Development Quarterly, 54(3), 187-201.

Multicultural Competence in Career Counseling

I would first like to comment on last week’s class before diving into the assigned readings for this week.  While I appreciate the incorporation of getting out of the classroom and exploring resources, I found the assignment somewhat below our academic expectations.  I have not been asked to do an activity like that since I was in high school.  I understand the usefulness of becoming acquainted with the resources, however I do not think we needed to spend as much time on it and could have made the activity more practical to what we are doing with clients.  I can see using the activity as maybe a homework assignment for a client that could possibly be started in session if we had access to a computer in a clinical setting.  I would not spend an entire session or part of a session working on this with a client though.  To tailor it to my clinical needs, I would use some of the information we were asked to gather and assign it to the client for homework.  I would ask them to write down or note what they struggled with and what they learned.  This could be done to not only help them learn information gathering skills, but also improve their self-efficacy and problem solving skills.  The activity helped me understand what difficulties a client might encounter at home when assigning this for homework which is necessary information.  

Focusing on Byars-Winston and Fouad’s article (2006) on multicultural competence in career counseling, I found a specific salient line in the article that struck me.  It was about the assumed equality of opportunity and career choice being characterized in major career development theories and practice and how this is not always the case for people who are not of Euro-American decent and ideals.  Almost all of the psychological theories and practices we study are based on Euro-American culture, however everyone that we treat and everyone in our communities are not of this culture.  This statement has been in the back of my mind all semester in regards to what we are learning in the classroom and how I am applying our theories to real life situations.  I think the best perspective to take on this is to make these experiences client-centered and put culture and race out on the table.  It is not our jobs to assimilate people of non-Euro-American cultures or dominant religions to the ideals of the theories we are learning.  The most important aspect of this is to learn where your client is coming from, what their value system is, and what you can offer them within the context of those two things. 

Brown, D. (2012).  Career information, career counseling, and career development (10^th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Byars-Winston, A. M., & Fouad, N. A. (2006). Metacognition and multicultural competence: Expanding the culturally appropriate career counseling model. Career Development Quarterly, 54(3), 187-201.