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EDG 6396 Capstone in Mental Health Counseling

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EDG 6396 Capstone in Mental Health Counseling

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In this assignment, I was tasked with building a digital resume in order to communicate my skills, behaviors, and attitudes to potential employers and to apply for professional positions in the future. I chose to utilize Canva for this assignment. I used one of Canva's existing templates and made it my own. I found this assignment to be very beneficial as it helped me pair down my preexisting resume which was very long. While I do not intend to utilize this resume right away, as I plan to open my own private practice, I do think it will be beneficial to have this on hand to use in the future if needed.

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I took the theories of counseling course in the Spring of 2019. While I do not recall exactly what was learned in this course or have access to my artifacts, the Angelo State University Licensed Professional Counselor Bridge Handbook (2023) shares that this course is an "overview of theoretical approaches to counseling including history and philosophy, and the fundamental concepts of counseling and consultation theories and practices designed to prepare the individual for further study in the field of counseling." (p.19). During this course, I recall learning about the different theories that make up counseling including theories from Gestalt, Jung, etc. Theories are important because they help us come up with our personal style of counseling. It is my personal belief that we should not use just one theory, but pull from a variety of theories to form a well-rounded practice for different clients with different needs. According to the ACA Code of Ethics (2014), "When providing services, counselors use techniques/procedures/modalities that are grounded in theory and/or have an empirical or scientific foundation." (p. 10). Counselors may differ on the theories they utilize, but they must utilize practices that are grounded in research-based theory. In the future, I plan to utilize an eclectic style of counseling.

Reference:

Angelo State University. (2023). Online Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) Bridge Handbook.

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I took the group counseling course in the Fall of 2018. While I do not recall exactly what was learned in this course or have access to my artifacts, the Angelo State University Licensed Professional Counselor Bridge Handbook (2023) shares that this course is about "the theory and types of groups, including dynamics and the methods of practice with groups" (p.19). During this course, I was introduced to the types of counseling groups and how they could be used in my degree plan at the time as a school counselor. There are many types of groups including psychoeducational groups, support groups, cognitive behavioral therapy groups, etc. The information in this course helped me to successfully implement small groups as a school counselor. It will also help me with my goal of implementing social skill groups as a professional counselor. One of the standards from the ACA Code of Ethics was B.4.a, which discusses confidentiality in group work. The counselor must explain the importance of confidentiality with the group (ACA, 2014).

Reference:

Angelo State University. (2023). Online Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) Bridge Handbook.

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Reference: American Counseling Association Code of Ethics 2014

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Reference: American Counseling Association Code of Ethics 2014

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I took the individual counseling course in the Fall of 2018. While I do not recall exactly what was learned in this course or have access to my artifacts, the Angelo State University Licensed Professional Counselor Bridge Handbook (2023) shares that this course is "an introduction and orientation to basic counseling, emphasizing the methods or techniques used to provide counseling treatment intervention to individuals" (p.19). During this course, counseling strategies were introduced to help students become familiar with the different techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, etc. This course enabled me as a current school counselor and now future licensed professional counselor to practice in a competent manner, which is an ethical component of the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics (2014).

Reference:

Angelo State University. (2023). Online Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) Bridge Handbook.

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In this assignment, I was tasked with writing an autobiography and tying it to my human growth and development. I tied in a lot about my childhood trauma in this paper and adverse childhood experiences. The ACA Code of Ethics (2014), outlines professional values of the counseling profession. The first professional value listed is, “enhancing human development throughout the life span” (p. 3). In order to meet this requirement, counselors need to understand human development theories and how these theories affect their clients. Every person has a unique story and set of experiences that makes up his/her story. Mine included adverse childhood experiences that helped me to relate to many of my clients. Each person's experiences affect how he/she sees the world, behaves, interacts with others, etc. A professional counselor needs to be able to identify milestones that were missed in a person’s development to be able to work towards filling in those gaps.

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

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

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This assignment was created as a group in the Introduction to Crisis, Trauma, and Mental Health Concerns course. For this assignment, my group was tasked with discussing suicide, identifying at-risk behaviors for suicide, appropriate screening for suicidal behaviors, etc. The group I was a part of chose to utilize a Google Sheets presentation for this assignment due to ease of collaboration. I found out how important suicide prevention is during my time as a school counselor and qualified mental health professional. I worked with children as young as kindergarten who felt they wanted to end their lives. As a Licensed Professional Counselor, knowing what to do in these situations is imperative to prevent suicide. An important part of the ACA Code of Ethics (2014) is that as professional counselors, we must keep clients' information confidential, but we can break this when a client is suicidal.

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Crisis Prevention and Threat Assessment 

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In this assignment, we were tasked with identifying our goals post-graduation, locating professional organizations, identifying ethical guidelines related to our role, locating professional insurance carriers, locating professional training and conference opportunities, and identifying possible ethical dilemmas. This assignment was conducted in a Google Slide that was provided for us. I enjoyed this assignment because we were tasked with researching items that were relevant to our future role. I especially appreciated the section where we had to identify ethical dilemmas we may face in the future. Ethics are a huge part of counseling, hence the ACA Code of Ethics. It is important as a counselor to be familiar with not only the code of ethics, but also real scenarios that we may come into contact with in this profession. It is also important to understand the role of consultation as it relates to ethical dilemmas and how to carry out consultations ethically.

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Britt, Amy - Online Scavenger Hunt - Professional Orientation Assignment

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EDG 6322 Introduction to School and Community Counseling

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EDG 6322 Introduction to School and Community Counseling

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In this assignment, I was tasked with taking a look at my community and identifying gaps and critical issues within the community. We were then asked to identify partnerships that could benefit the community. We were asked to write a paper outlining our findings. I found that crime, mental health, and youth programs were issues that needed to be addressed within my community. I also identified that schools could find solutions to help by utilizing grants, after-school programs, etc. to help meet the needs of our youth to minimize these needs. It is important as professional counselors to be a help to our community. This is part of "beneficence, or working for the good of the individual and society by promoting mental health and well-being", which is part of the ACA Code of Ethics (2014, p. 3). As a licensed professional counselor I intend to identify gaps specifically in the school systems and partner with schools to help children in our communities. I believe that my background as a teacher and school counselor will help me in this role.

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In this research assignment, I was tasked with answering a list of questions related to research. The questions included why research is important, the types of research, the parts of research, the purpose of research, etc. I chose to utilize a Google Doc for this assignment and do a sort of Q&A style paper to answer each of the questions outlined in the assignment. The purpose for this assignment comes from the ACA Code of Ethics Section G titled "Research and Publication" which outlines the counselor's role in research. This particular assignment helped me to read and understand research and how to conduct research should I choose to do so in the future.

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EDG 6301 Social and Cultural Influences 

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EDG 6301 Social and Cultural Influences 

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In this assignment, I was tasked with highlighting information that was important to my family and culture. The standard for this assignment was based on the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics core professional value, which tasks counselors with honoring diversity and embracing a multicultural approach. The information in this assignment included my upbringing, my economic status, traditions that were important in my family, and where my family is from. I chose to use a Google Slide presentation for this assignment and included information on how trauma affected my family's culture. This assignment will help me in the profession to understand the variety of ways that we can differ in our cultural experiences.