If I were a non-college level teacher I would love to be a kindergarten or pre-K teacher like my wife. Over the years I've spent hours in her classroom reading to children and helping her with the joys of managing her young students.
I particularly like when children are exposed to a formal educational experience for the first time at the beginning of a school year. This Pre-K year is the foundation on which the rest of the child's academic life will be built. If this experience is positive, the child will be much more likely to enjoy the learning process in the years to come.
The internship for doctoral students is a kind of adult equivalent to kindergarten in the counseling area. These students are mature adults, of course, but new clinicians are entering the clinical world for the first time. I see on their faces the same excitement, nervousness and fear that my wife sees in her students at the beginning of every fall. I love it.
As a supervisor, I am in a unique position with my interns, as I only hire one intern each year and as I lead our counseling program, I can do it as I want. That gives me a lot of leeway and daily personal mentoring time with interns as well as the freedom to expose them to the field as I see fit.
* It is always a pleasure to witness their development from the first few weeks in sessions with clients to the conclusion months later.
During our year together we examine every aspect of the counseling process in detail – admission, assessment, relationship building, treatment planning, records, ethics, risk management, law, termination, to name a few. But one of the many things I do – and I doubt most other interns experience this – is to help my interns develop their own ingestion modes and processes. I have never spoken to a clinician for whom the internship was not limited to admission procedures. It was then your job to simply follow the instructions.
As soon as clinicians enter regular practice, they either adopt a version of the forms that have always been recommended to them, or they use forms provided to them by the hospital or clinic where they work. This means that most clinicians never really have to think about the admission process. They just do what they are told and just assume that is the best way to do it.
Most counselors consider quality of life issues when suggesting that clients change their behavior, pursue medical treatment options, or undertake other interventions. However, I doubt most clinicians ever think about the admission process as a quality of life issue because they have never been forced to.
Isn't it annoying when you go to the doctor for the first time, fill out pages and pages of forms (many of which repeatedly ask for the same information) and then when you see the doctor in the exam room, you hear, "So, what brings you here today? "
Don't ask yourself, “Well, I've just spent 30 minutes writing this down for you. If you first ask me why I am here, why did I have to spend all that time filling out paperwork? "
During our first weeks of supervision I help interns to think this process through. The question is, what do you need to know when you first see a customer? Some things are inevitable – HIPAA forms and consent forms, for example. But what else is critical? If not strictly necessary, it may not be part of your admission package.
My short version admission form is only one page. In my practice, I need to know the child's name, contact information, legal guardian, and the presentation problem. It's too easy, but in general, that's all that matters to me. I have a longer form that I use when I know the case can go to court or if it is a review for a school or care system, but many of my clients do not fall into those two situations. Everything that is important beyond the information captured in my short form will show up in therapy at some point.
I therefore suggest that you check your records. If we want to ask a client to do something – do homework, see a doctor, change lifestyle, or even fill out pieces of paper – we need to have a good reason.
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Gregory K. Moffatt is a veteran advisor for more than 30 years and the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Point University. In his monthly Voice of Experience column for CT Online, he aims to draw theoretical, ethical and practical lessons from his diverse career as well as inspiration for today's consultants, whether they are just starting out or have been practicing for many years. His experience spans three decades of working with children, trauma and abuse, as well as a host of other experiences including working with schools, businesses and law enforcement agencies. Contact him at [email protected].
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It should not be assumed that opinions or statements in articles appearing on CT Online represent the opinions of the editors or guidelines of the American Counseling Association.
