chapters 6 and 14

Assuming that people are what you may think they are just by physical appearance can be detrimental in the counseling setting. Counselors need to be especially careful and ask the client what their background is. This helps the client build rapport and trust with the counselor. Last Wednesday, we learned about two different models dealing with multicultural counseling. Brown’s model, (Brown, 2012) was very similar to the Culturally Appropriate Career Counseling Model (Notes, 10-30). I liked Browns model because it had more to do with advocating for your client. I think that in order to build a relationship, the client needs to know that you care about them and will do whatever you can to help them succeed. I also liked the CACCM because I enjoyed the visual bulls eye of assessing the impact of cultural variables on career issues. It reminded me a lot of Broffenbrenner’s systems and how they can affect the person.

            The impacts of society on a person leads me into chapter six, which talks about counseling individuals who have disabilities (Brown, 2012). I have always found it disturbing that employers will turn people who have disabilities away without making the effort to get to know what they are capable of. As Skinner and Scheneck (1992) mentioned, I believe that it is important to help the student find schools and occupations that will meet their accommodations so that they are successful (Brown, 2012).

            I was unaware that people with mental illnesses make up the second largest group of clients with disabilities and that their unemployment rate was as high as 85% as stated by Caporoso and Kiselica  (2004). I also found table 6.1 to be very interesting (Brown, 2012). I never realized how significant the difference in weekly pay was between a person who has a high school diploma and a person who has their bachelor’s degree. Clients who are not able to attend college and earn a bachelor’s degree are low on the totem pole right off the bat, no matter what their work ethic is. Now, I’m assuming that these numbers do not account for those who end up working their way up in a company, that these are based off of an average, but still, looking at this chart can be very defeating for some people. I also found it astounding, though not surprising that when looking at the same resume, minus the difference in age, the employer chose the younger person (Brown, 2012).

            Chapter 11 talked about how to go about finding a job. I was surprised to find out that the people who were more Realistic, Conventional and Enterprising were more likely to network with family and friends whereas those who were more Social, Artistic and Investigative tended to find jobs through the newspaper or agencies (Brown, 2012).  I thought the interview section was important and that interview skills should be taught at a younger age so that it becomes more of a natural task and not something to stress over.

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