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All of the courses that I have taken over the course of this past year has prepared me to enter the counseling field with a wealth of knowledge and skills. I was originally scared that I would not retain the knowledge that I learned, or it would be so much information that I would get overwhelmed and possible shut down. Throughout this course, I learned more than once the importance of self-care to ensure that I am taking care of my mind, body, and soul! The other courses taught practical lessons that are highly valuable.

I came in not fully understanding that there are consents and lines that may not be crossed. However, there are others that are blurred when the client becomes a danger to themselves in any way. This also can lead to referrals when there maybe nothing that I can do for the client when it comes to meeting their needs. Originally, I would have felt less than if I were unable to meet a client's needs. However, this program has shown me that there is no issue calling in assistance in order to make sure the client is healthy and whole.

Understanding trauma and crisis is another area that I am too familiar with from a person standpoint, but with a different perspective. My angle is from being the hurting client who did not seek help in time to prevent a tragedy, which was my burn injury. Learning things that could not only have helped me during that time, but being able to assist others now, is inspiring. There are too many hurting people in the world that need counselors.

I am excited to take the next step toward my license in counseling. That will be the bridge that is being offered by Angelo State and then on to testing and completing my clinical hours. Although this process is tedious, and time consuming at points, it is giving me the necessary foundation to become a great helping professional in the near future!

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Artifact – Psychological First Aid Online Certificate

This assignment was one of the most tedious because of the components involved. But it also challenged me to figure out situations as I was seeing them occur. I did not always get the answers right, but I learned as the lessons continued to see what was going on through the scenarios. With so many different things happening with the fires and storms, it was hard to multitask and focus on more than one individual. But I understand that in life, this will happen many times over. This lesson showed me that as a counselor, I have to be prepared at all times. During these situations, I also learned that I still have to practice self-care during these situations because burn out can wear down counselors as well.

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Psychological First Aid (PFA) Online_Certificate

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Education 6332 Introduction to Crisis, Trauma, and Mental Health Concerns

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Education 6332 Introduction to Crisis, Trauma, and Mental Health Concerns

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Outcome – Psychological First Aid Online Certificate

This course was altogether amazing to me! I enjoyed all of the assignments and the videos and slideshows made the points come to life! Sometimes when I am taking courses, it is easy to get lost in all of the assignments. As a visual learner, I love to see things scroll across my eyes so that I get a better understanding. To watch the scenarios, it put me in the situations that were occurring, and I felt like I was there in the moment. This is important because as a future helping professional, these are skills that I will need to utilize in the future. Understanding how to navigate mass tragedies, natural disasters, and issues like school shootings is vital to my future role. This course also taught on assessing and understanding trauma threats and assessment. Being able to spot issues before they occur can save lives and get individuals the help that they may need. All the information is going to be very important for me to keep as I move into my future role as a helping professional.

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Artifact – Proposed Research Template

Application

The task was to complete the template on the research topic of my choice for our final assignment. As a burn survivor, and an advocate in that area, I am always looking to expand burn survivor resources. This research paper pushed me to explore possible counseling options for surviors while they recover on the burn unit. Afterwards, it gave me a different idea to be able to bring therapists to burn survivors when they initially go home as part of their after care services. In essence, what is started on the floor can be offered as an outpatient program to keep them encouraged, decrease post trauma suicides, and lower the cases of depression post discharge

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Outcome – Clarify a specific problem on which research will focus

This was the one course that I was afraid to take. I have never been great at researching and putting that into paper format on an extensive scale. I tend to confuse the quantitative and qualitative figures. This course pushed me to my limits on understanding how to complete assignments. However, I finished the class learning a wealth of new skills and information! It has helped me with submitting proposals to organizations and hospitals relating to burn trauma counseling. As a future counselor, this class will assist me with applying for funding for burn survivor counseling programs as well as getting research and statistics into the right hands to affect change in burn patient disparities.

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Artifact – Suicidal Prevention Plan

Application

As a survivor of a suicide attempt, this assignment hit home for me. It brought back many emotions and feelings that I had not experienced in years. Having been down this horrific path, I knew that I was looking to find ways to help others that may be in the same situation that I was in over a decade ago. This assignment allowed me to find local, state, and national resources that would aid individuals who are contemplating suicide or attempting suicide. I felt that I accomplished a major milestone. I have used this assignment to assist with local agencies that I work with since this class ended. This assignment was the best!

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Suicide Prevention Plan for Trauma Survivors

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Outcome – Suicidal Prevention Plan

Individual counseling was a true test of self-exploration. This course started with many self reflections actitives and assignments meant to help us understand ourselves and what we may bring to the field of counseling. This course ensured that I dug deep and went through various stages of preparing for individual counseling sessions with future clients. It also emphasized self-care as well as therapists should always be sure to take care of themselves so that they can be of sound mind and mentally whole. This ensures that the clients get the best version of the counselor during their sessions to help them with whatever they may be facing. Self-reflection, self-care, and creating plans were the highlights to take with me into my future role.

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Artifact – Michael Jackson (Musical Intelligence)

Application

Michael Jackson went down in history as the “King of Pop”! This was directly related to the way that he processed the world and his problems. Many things that he loved were intertwined with his musical gift: writing, processing, healing, and performing. This assignment allowed me to have fun exploring things about Michael that were not just common knowledge. This ties into my objective thoughts that as a helping professional in the future, it pays to understand my clients' intelligences as it may be a way for me to help them learn and grow throughout our time together.

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Education 6303 Human Growth and Development

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Education 6303 Human Growth and Development

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Outcome – Multiple Intelligences

Human Growth and Development has always been a course that baffled me. There are tons of concepts and people attached to those concepts that can make things easily confusing. However, this course was broken down into easy-to-understand steps that not only defined the course but gave me a solid foundation on which to build. The intelligences allow you to see what categories clients may fall into, as well as how they may perceive, or receive help. Knowing their skills and background can help me as a counselor figure out their talents and how they learn or cope to different situations. If I know where a client falls on this spectrum, or on the chart, it will allow me to develop mechanisms to assist them through different phases of their life while helping them to learn deeper things about themselves. Some of these intelligences include interpersonal, linguistic, and special intelligence.

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Artifact – None available due to computer crash

Application

My favorite assignment for this course was attending a group meeting and summarizing it with a video conclusion of what I learned. I went to a group session more so wanting to learn how the components I was learning were portrayed in real life. I watched the objectives from this course come to life before my eyes. Preparing for a new group should be a process. For the future, I have already updated the way that I handle creating the groups. There are several factors that I now plan for instead of just winging each session based on how it was taught to me by the hospital. I plan to help individuals get the most out of the sessions so that they can improved their lives as a result.

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Outcome – Establish a Group

Group counseling was a course that allows me to build upon my current base as a facilitator for support groups. I also learned new techniques to utilize. When I started this course and the project of starting a new type of group, I was calm, but I realized that I had missed quite a few planning steps with other groups I had done, which could have been highly beneficial. When setting up groups, the process to getting there is just as important as the group meeting to assist the individuals. Also, understanding that different members within the group may not be in the same place. Lastly, being able to navigate the emotions that may occur throughout group sessions is also a great undertaking. Handling group sessions is not for the faint of heart.

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Artifact – None available due to computer crash

Application

This class taught the basic principle of learning who I might become as a helping professional in the future. It also taught the importance of understanding that self-care is important to maintain a healthy work/personal life balance. Part of the objectives were also to consult with other helping professionals to improve the outcomes for the client. No counselor has to work alone or without outside resources. Moving into my future profession, I have learned what I can bring to the table by doing a self-assessment and understanding my role as a helping professional. This course was key to understanding the backdrop of the counseling profession!

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Education 6301 Social and Cultural Influence

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Education 6301 Social and Cultural Influence

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Outcome – Influences of media programming in shaping beliefs about diverse populations

The assignment that I loved in this class took us on a journey to understand stereotypes of academic success based on ethnicity. This challenged me personally, as well as from a future helping professional standpoint. As African Americans, most people look to us to succeed in education because of athletic talent when that could not be farther from the truth. For those of us without talent in sports, we are actually smart, intelligent, people who rely on our academics to achieve future success including scholarships, attending college, and propelling forward in life. This course will help me see other races outside of biases when it comes to achieving educational goals and future professional success because I will see their individual talents, not their race.

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Artifact – None available due to computer crash

Application

During this course, we were tasked with choosing a theorists and researching their theories. After researching all of the theorists, and the theories that they developed throughout time. Having to comb through tons of research over each theory taught me that people learn in different ways. Because of that they prefer different types of counseling styles. As a counselor, this assignment prepared me to understand that the needs of each client can be different, and range based on their emotions and lifestyle. For me, I focused mainly on person-centered therapy as well as the Gestalt theory because they resonated with me. This project gave me deeper insight into different options available. Oddly enough, I did not know that many of theories existed. My knowledge bank was made richer by this assignment.

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Outcome – Identify basic concepts of Person-Centered Therapy

I identified with person-centered therapy because I have found myself involved in this theory many times with my own therapist. Many who prefer this type of therapy want to be able to solve issues themselves when possible. It is a popular type of psychotherapy that can create unique therapy environments while allowing the client to achieve positive psychological responses and functionality. This theory was created by Carl Rogers in the early mid 1900’s. According to the National Library of Medicine, this form of psychotherapy is grounded in the idea that people are inherently motivated toward positive thinking and achieving their goals from that standpoint (2023).

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Artifact – None available due to computer crash

Application

This class taught the basic principle of learning who I might become as a helping professional in the future. It also taught the importance of understanding that self-care is important to maintain a healthy work/personal life balance. Part of the objectives were also to consult with other helping professionals to improve the outcomes for the client. No counselor has to work alone or without outside resources. Moving into my future profession, I have learned what I can bring to the table by doing a self-assessment and understanding my role as a helping professional. This course was key to understanding the backdrop of the counseling profession!

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Outcome – Evaluate the implementation of self-care

Self-care was a foreign concept to me. As long as I could remember, I always took care of everyone else first, which meant I was always last on the list. This easily led to frustration, anger, resentment, and fatigue. After taking this course, specifically this module, I learned so many things about myself and what I could do to better my personal outcomes. There were several activities that we could choose from to relax and learn to take care of ourselves. I completed more than one activity on our assignment list and found that I was calm and relaxed. As a rule of thumb, I started to do these activities once a week to stay grounded and balanced.

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Artifact – None available due to computer crash

Application

This class, and assignment, can be applied to the counseling field in many ways. For starters, being able to understand what is happening in the community around you is key to being a great counselor. It is also highly important to recognize the importance of educational organizations within the community. Counselors can effect change in many areas, including the communities that surround their offices by offering services and evaluating needs within the community.

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Education 6322 Intro to School & Community Counseling

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Education 6322 Intro to School & Community Counseling

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Outcome – Outline current events/situations/happenings impacting the community.

In all honesty, this assignment was daunting to me at first. We were to reach out to someone in our community, and later attend a function, relating to situations that were occurring in our community. I reached out to the economic development director for the City of Irving. It was how I learned how the community decides to spend its funds regarding citizen needs in the area. One of the problems occurring was the lack of bus drivers, which led to city residents waiting for buses that never arrived. It was a hot topic at city council meetings, including the one I attended. During my research I noticed that citizens even lost their jobs due to unreliable city transportation. This issue has since been resolved with the city paying higher wages to secure reliable bus drivers.

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Jennifer is currently a graduate student at Angelo State University that constantly leaves a positive footprint wherever she travels, literally! Jennifer is also mom to her daughter, Niya (Ladybug) and soon, Nicolai, who is arriving in August.  She received her Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration, a field where she can effect change in the disparities that affect survivors from all walks of life. Because of this, she is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Mental Health and Wellness. She plans to become a licensed professional counselor upon completion. Jennifer is currently in the publishing process with her first book entitled Through the Fire: Fight of My Life which shares the story of her burn injury by taking a deep look into her past. Jennifer’s burns affect 93% of her body and range from second to fourth degree. In 2014, Jennifer started the East Texas Burn Foundation to bring medical supplies, resources, education and support to burn survivors in the East Texas area. In 2022, she went into business with her father and brother to establish a fast-growing transportation and logistics company called H2 Transport. Jennifer is an active participant in ministry with Covenant Fellowship Church and S.A.L.T. (Saving Another Lost Teen) Youth Ministry. She enjoys volunteering, spending time with her daughter and family, traveling, and uplifting others through motivational speaking.