Counselling Children and Young People (COUN7012)

Weighting: 40%

Word count: 1000 words (rationale) + creative aid (word count not prescribed)

Aim: The aim of this task is to demonstrate your ability to use creativity, in combination with your knowledge of children and young people, to develop a fit-for-purpose resource or activity that can be used therapeutically with a child/young person.

Task description: For this task, you will create a resource or activity that counsellors or psychologists could use meaningfully when working therapeutically with a specific client who is a child or young person.

When developing your resource or activity, you should consider:

·      the age/developmental stage of your client (including what they may find appealing and/or challenging); and

·      the purpose of your resource or activity.

In addition to your resource or activity (and any necessary instructions for practitioners wishing to use your resource or activity), you will prepare a 1000-word Rationale, which will explain and justify, with reference to a thorough description of your client, developmental theory and empirical evidence (where relevant), the logic and intention behind your creative design.

In your Rationale, you should provide a clear explanation of:

·      the characteristics of your client e.g., age, developmental stage, presenting issues/diagnosis (if relevant);

·      the purpose of your design;

·      the features of your design that ensure its suitability for your client and the purpose you have identified;

·      developmental theory/ies that have informed your design; and

·      empirical evidence that has informed your design (if relevant).

Some examples of resources or activities you may like to develop include:

·       Board games

·       Stimulus Cards

·       Program of physically active interventions

·       Puppets and puppetry aids / Dolls

·       Storybooks

·       Card games

·       Computer Games

·       Choose your own adventure style games/stories

·       Poetry

·       Nature Activities

·       Create your own superhero craft

·       Sandplay activities

·       Collage

·       Jigsaw Puzzles

·       Construction task

·       Treasure boxes /Mystery boxes

·       Websites

·       YouTube or other shared video platform presentation

·       Online activities/Apps

·       Science experiments (that link to psychoeducation)

Notes on use of AI in this assignment

It is an important professional skill to develop fit-for-purpose resources to work with your clients, and this task has been developed to facilitate the acquisition and/or further development of those skills.

The use of AI in the preparation of this task is likely to preclude the acquisition and/or further development of those skills and reduce the attainment of this course’s learning outcomes. As such, any use of AI should be minimal and, if used, must be acknowledged.

Please note that Turnitin checks for the use of AI and provides an estimated percentage of AI generated content in your paper. The use of AI without proper acknowledgement represents a breach of academic integrity.

Formatting instructions

Your Rationale should align with APA 7th formatting, including double-spacing and Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman font. All sources should be cited in-text and in the reference list, which should be formatted in accordance with APA 7th conventions.

Submission instructions

If your creative aid is a physical object, please submit it to the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work Reception, on Level 3, Building 35, Chamberlain Building on or before 1pm on 6 September 2024.

If your creative aid is an electronic object, please submit it via the submission link in Blackboard.

Please submit your Rationale via the Turnitin submission link in Blackboard.

2024 COUN7012/PSYC7806 Critical Review Task Description

Weighting: 40%

Word count: 2500 words

Aim: The aim of this task is to demonstrate your ability to critically review and evaluate the appropriateness of a counselling intervention/approach for use with an identified target audience of children or young people, with reference to theoretical and empirical literature.

Task description:

For this task, you will:

1.      choose a counselling intervention/approach that is used with a specific group of children and/or young people; and

2.      undertake a critical review of the literature which evaluates its efficacy and effectiveness with the identified group of children and/or young people.

Please note – this task does not require you to conduct a meta-analysis or systematic review. You are not required to adhere to the PRISMA guidelines, and you do not need to provide a summary table which describes all of the studies you are discussing in your review.

Rather, you will engage with a body of literature which is known to provide some support for the effectiveness and/or efficacy of a counselling approach with a specified client population. You will critically review this body of literature for the purpose of evaluating the robustness of the evidence and any limitations and/or considerations practitioners should be aware of in order to utilise the approach effectively.

This task does not require you to have an advanced understanding of research methodology and design. When evaluating the robustness of the evidence base, you will consider basic methodology factors such as the number of studies that contribute to the evidence base, the number of participants included in those studies, the presence (or not) of control groups, the limitations of the studies (as identified by the studies’ authors), recommendations for appropriate implementation of the approach, as discussed by the studies’ authors.

To get started, you may like to refer to clinical guidelines, such as:

evidence-based-psych-interventions.pdf (psychology.org.au)

Mental health, behavioural and neurodevelopmental conditions | Topic | NICE

cpg-technical-evidence-report_2023.pdf (melbournechildrens.com)

Table of Evidence-Based Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Interventions (aap.org)

These documents may assist you to identify and/or evaluate relevant efficacy/effectiveness studies or to choose your own topic.

Your critical review will include:

·      A clear statement of the counselling intervention/approach you are reviewing AND the characteristics of the group of children/young people (e.g., age range; diagnostic status; other relevant details e.g., children in foster care) for whom you are evaluating the appropriateness of this intervention/approach;

·      A detailed description of the counselling intervention/approach you are critically reviewing;

·      A detailed description of relevant empirical literature which has evaluated the efficacy or effectiveness of the identified counselling intervention/approach with the identified group;

·      A critical evaluation of the empirical literature which has evaluated the efficacy or effectiveness of the identified counselling intervention/approach with the identified group (including quality of the studies; noted gaps);

·      A conclusion with respect to the appropriateness of the use of this counselling intervention/approach with this group of children/young people, including any special considerations and/or constraints that may limit its appropriateness.

For your critical review, you may choose one of the following topics or you may choose your own topic.

·      Interpersonal Therapy for young people with depressive symptoms and/or a diagnosis of depression.

·      Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for young people with a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

·      Family-based interventions for young people with a diagnosis of an eating disorder.

·      Trauma-focused Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (TF-CBT) or Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for young children who have experienced trauma.

·      Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) for children displaying internalising and/or externalising behaviour problems.

·      Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for young people with anxiety.

·      Play therapy for young children with a range of presenting issues.

·      Gestalt therapy for young people with a range of presenting issues.

·      Narrative therapy for young people with a range of presenting issues.

·      Internal Family Systems therapy for young people with a range of presenting issues.

If you are choosing your own topic, please discuss your intended topic with the Course Coordinator by no later than 27 September 2024.

Notes on use of AI in this assignment

It is an important academic and professional skill to make informed decisions about the use of interventions in your therapeutic work. To make those informed decisions, you need to develop skills of critical review and evaluation, and this task has been developed to facilitate the acquisition and/or further development of those skills.

The use of AI in the preparation of this task is likely to preclude the acquisition and/or further development of those skills and reduce the attainment of this course’s learning outcomes. As such, any use of AI should be minimal and, if used, must be acknowledged.

Please note that Turnitin checks for the use of AI and provides an estimated percentage of AI generated content in your paper. The use of AI without proper acknowledgement represents a breach of academic integrity.

Formatting instructions

Your critical review should align with APA 7th formatting, including double-spacing and Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman font. All sources should be cited in-text and in the reference list, which should be formatting in accordance with APA 7th formatting.

Submission instructions

Please submit your Critical Review via the Turnitin submission link in Blackboard.

Weighting:        20%

Word count:     1000-1200 words (250-300 words per reflection)

Aim:     

The aim of this task is to demonstrate your ability to reflect on the course content, with specific reference to the ways in which working therapeutically with children and adolescents may differ from working therapeutically with adults.

It is intended that this reflective exercise will consolidate your learning by providing an opportunity to make meaningful connections between the course content and other knowledge you have attained throughout your program and/or experiences you may have had in other contexts.

Task description:

For this task, you will prepare four (4) individual reflections on topics/issues covered in this course.  Each of these reflections should be between 250 and 300 words in length.

You may choose any topics that you wish. The only specification is that we must have covered the topics in some way in the course.

You may like to use real-world examples to illustrate your learning. If you choose to do this, please ensure the examples are de-identified to protect the privacy of those involved in the example.

As this task is intended to be reflective, there is no expectation that you will include empirical sources in this task. However, if you do make use of any sources, please ensure you cite them in accordance with APA formatting.

Notes on use of AI in this task:

This task is intended to be prepared without the use of AI. The purpose of this task is to facilitate your personal reflection in your capacity as an emerging professional who may be working with children and adolescents in the future. As such, it is important that you engage in this process authentically and do not rely upon AI for this task.

Formatting:

Your personal reflections should be formatted in accordance with APA 7th edition style guidelines. This includes double-spacing and the use of Arial or Times New Roman font, in size 11 or 12. Any sources should be cited in the text and included in a reference list at the end of your reflections.

Submission:

Please submit your reflections via the Turnitin submission link in Blackboard. This task can be submitted at any time between week 5 and week 13 of semester. The final submission date is Friday of revision week at 1pm.