Career Counseling
Introduction
Check Your Email
Career Counseling Clients
Check in with Kim
Conclusion
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Introduction
Welcome to the One-Stop Center, a career center in Riverbend City. As a new hire, youll be handling career counseling clients, under the supervision of Kim Cohen, a manager at the Center. In fact, shes already emailed you about your first duties.
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Email From Kim
You have an email from Kim Cohen, a manager at the center.
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Subject: Your First Tasks
Good morning, and welcome! Im glad youre going to be working with us. There will be time for settling in later, but right now Im afraid well have to throw you right in. Weve got five people waiting to be seen for career counseling services.
Weve got a bit of information about each client. Take a look at what weve got, and choose a client youd like to work with.
After youve chosen one, Id like you to put some thought into how their background or culture or other traits might pose difficulties for you in working with them. Check back in with me once youve chosen, and Ill explain what I mean.
–Kim
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message or their agent, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.
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Career Counseling Clients
Select each client to learn more about that clients background, education, and career needs.
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Juan
Age 41, Male
Juan is a 41-year-old Latino man who recently retired from the Air Force. He holds a BA in Human Services, which he completed during his military career. He has been married for 17 years.
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Vaughn
Age 23, Male
Vaughn is a 23-year-old Native American man of the Sioux tribe. He is a respected member and is eager to work on improving conditions on a reservation not far from Riverbend City. He is single. He attended a community college and holds an associates degree.
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Crystal
Age 18, Female
Crystal is an 18-year-old Korean American female, who recently graduated high school and has had vocational training in graphic design. She has dyslexia.
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Scott
Age 31, Male
Scott is a single Caucasian male, 31 years old, who left school in the 10th grade. He was recently released from prison after serving a 10-year sentence for a felony drug charge. Because he committed his offense so early in life, he has no work history.
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Margaret
Age 33, Female
Margaret is a 33-year-old African American woman with two children, aged 8 and 14. She is recently divorced and does not have a job. She once worked as a secretary for a real estate firm, but left that job after her second child was born. She does not have a degree but did complete two years at a community college.
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Email From Kim
You have an email from Sandra Loh, Walk-In Counseling Center Director.
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Subject: Intake Interview
Okay, now that youve chosen a client, Id like you to put some thought into how this client might be difficult for you.
Think about things like how their cultural background is different from yours, how it might affect their lives in different ways, that kind of thing. Do you have biases or assumptions about their culture or ethnicity that might make it challenging for you to work with them? Do they have cultural or other issues that might make it harder for you both to communicate, or affect your work together in other ways?
Also, think about how these things and other factors, like their age or gender or socioeconomic status might have affected their career development, or other things, like their mental well-being. Its going to be important to keep factors like this in mind as youre working with them on their career plan.
Once youve put some thought into it, explain it to me in an email. It doesnt have to be anything formal; just explain your initial thoughts about these questions. Since this is your first case, Id like to walk through some of these issues really thoughtfully so that you have a good basis for the next one!
–Kim
You have explored five diverse cases in the Riverbend City: Career Counseling scenarios media piece designed to enhance your cultural competence and ability to work with a variety of life situations. As previously discussed, we must understand our own assumptions, values, and biases, as well as the worldviews of others and then develop appropriate strategies and interventions. The goal of this assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of cultural competence, your limitations as they relate to career counseling, and your plan to develop the needed skills.
For this assignment, choose one of the five scenarios that may be applied to your counseling specialization. Using the Diversity Issues in Career Counseling Template (linked in Resources), address the following elements in your assignment:
Discuss an issue or challenge for a chosen client or student in developing their career plan.
Describe specific characteristics pertaining to culture and diversity that are associated with the fictitious person from your chosen scenario and explore considerations that may factor into the presenting career or job-related concern.
Analyze how societal norms such as gender, age, culture, socioeconomic status or other characteristics may have influenced your client’s career development. Select at least three characteristics or diversity issues.
Explain how these factors, combined with the presenting career counseling issue, impact the person’s mental well-being, life roles, and relationships with others.
Analyze the interrelationships among work, mental well-being, social interactions, and other life roles and factors.
Explain how these factors interrelate in defining or clarifying career goals.
Assess how biases and assumptions can impact the career counseling process both from your perspective as the counselor and from the perspective of the client or student. Propose strategies to decrease biases and assumptions.
Self-assess biases and assumptions and describe how to minimize them when working with diverse populations.
Assess your own biases and describe how you will work to decrease these biases when working with diverse populations.
Describe strategies you can use to decrease your biases and assumptions.
Review the Diversity Issues in Career Counseling Scoring Guide to understand the grading criteria for this assignment.
