Christine Alves Exemplar 5 Exemplar 5: Ecosystems Case Study Report and Presentation Good, Bad, Balanced: An Ecosystemic Report

CSP 622A: Ecosystemic Assessment & Intervention I: Students Standards: 25 & 27 Introduction: Often times, students are looked at from a one-dimensional perspective. As a professional school counselor, it is important to understand the whole person, and not just see the student as a number on our caseload. There can be many factors the influence student behaviors such as culture, religion, socioeconomic status, family dynamics, peer relations, academic expectations and more. As a school counselor, I strive to get to know my student as a whole, which can be done by utilizing an ecosystemic assessment. In CSP 622A, we learned the process and importance of using an ecosystemic approach and implementing appropriate interventions. For my assignment, I worked with one particular student on my caseload and conducted an in depth ecosystemic assessment. The student was referred to the counseling office for academic and behavior concerns. I established a preliminary hypothesis from brief interactions with the student, as well as the referral. Through record reviews, observations, individual counseling sessions, and collaboration with teachers, parents, and mentors, I refined my hypothesis to that the student lashes out, physically and emotionally, when he interpreted that he was having a bad day, which could include conflicts at home or at school. There were different domains that created the students ecosystemic model: home life, school, peer relations, and religion. After the ecosystemic assessment was conducted, an intervention was put in place. Standard 25: Individual Counseling

Christine Alves Exemplar 5 I used the schools database, FileMaker Pro, to review the students files. I also reviewed past report cards and his cumulative files. Self-reporting from the student was another method I used to collect information. I utilized Solution Focused Counseling (SFC) techniques to establish rapport and identify ways the student could make changes when unfavorable situations would occur. During individual counseling sessions, the student and I identified what bad and good days looked like through the use of the miracle question, a SFC technique. One developed intervention was for the student to be able to identify his feelings and apply coping skills, American School Counselor Association (ASCA) student standards PS:A1.5 Identify and express feelings and PS:C1.11 Learn coping skills for managing life events. The student did so by informing his teacher, with a show of fingers, how he was feeling: 1 meant a bad day, 2 meant a good day, and 3 meant somewhere in between. This would inform the teacher as to whether or not she needed to send the student to the counseling center to process his day. This intervention was implemented with the hope of decreasing undesireable behaviors in the classroom. This intervention decreased the number of referrals the student received. Standard 27: Collaboration, Consultation, & Team Building I consulted with the students mentor to obtain ideas for supporting the student. The mentor was no longer working with the student but would communicate with me when he recalled different techniques that he used to minimize negative behaviors. I also collaborated with the teacher to establish, as well as implement the intervention. The teacher and I met weekly, formally and informally, to foster

Christine Alves Exemplar 5 rapport, identify and analysis the problem, discuss the intervention, and provide each other with feedback. I followed legal mandates to have the student, parents and outside therapist sign a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) release form enabling collaboration. In addition, I went on a home visit, with a translator, to consult with the students parents. Through the visit, I obtained a clearer understanding of the dynamics in the home and the parental expectations. As a whole, after the first intervention was implemented, the therapist, parents, student, teacher and I met to discuss our hopes for the following year for the student, such as grade retention or special day class placement. Conclusion: This case study project was my first ecosystemic assessment as a school counselor trainee. Since then, I have used the skills I learned from this assessment, such as student data collection, collaboration, counseling skills, implementation and evaluation of interventions, and have applied them to all students on my caseload. As a professional, I will continue to counsel my students from an ecosystemic approach through collaboration and individual counseling sessions. If I were to conduct this project differently, I would have collaborated with the outside therapist more. The student faced several challenges that were beyond my scope as a school counselor, and I would have liked to better assist the student through collaborating with his therapist to see how I could be of support from an academic perspective. As previously mentioned, this was my first case student upon entering the program, therefore I exerted a significant amount of effort and time on this particular

Christine Alves Exemplar 5 student. Over the next year and a half, I learned how to conduct an in depth ecosystemic approach for more students, in a more concise amount of time.