Component #1: Developmental Considerations in Counseling

1) When using interventions with children and adolescents, the developmental level of the client is an important consideration. Discuss the effect of developmental levels on both the choice of intervention and the potential effectiveness of an intervention.

2) What would a developmentally savvy counselor need to take into consideration when planning assessment and interventions for those in mid-adolescence?
3) How might a counselor explain what "counseling" is to a low-ability 14 year old boy? To a gifted 10-year-old? To a high school senior with average intellectual ability?

Component #2: Individual Counseling Process

1) Discuss the stages of the counseling process when working with hypothetical client Nancy, a 12-year-old adolescent who was recently adopted from the foster care system and is having difficulties with her new younger siblings.
2) Discuss the construct "resistance" in terms of:
-How can it be conceptualized?
-What might contribute to it?
-How might it be reframed as something positive?
-What are some appropriate counseling responses to it, including strategies for working with it?
3) Discuss termination issues related to counseling children and adolescents, citing at least six strategies that can potentially help both counselor and client to end the counseling relationship appropriately.

Component #3: Ethical and Multicultural Considerations

1) What are the legal and ethical concerns when working with a minor who was referred for counseling by his or her teacher? Specifically cite applicable ASCA and AACC ethical standards.

2) What theoretical orientation(s) will you primarily use when counseling students and why? Identify how you considered culture in your theoretical orientation choices.
Component #4: Brief Counseling

1) Describe the eight characteristics of brief counseling.
2) Give an example of each characteristic.
3) Brief counseling is simply a tool for helping people. Under what circumstances is brief counseling an appropriate tool?An inappropriate tool?
4) How does the brief counseling model differ from a psychodynamic (humanistic, Adlerian) approach?
Component #5: Play Therapy

For each of the following scenarios, decide which of the play therapy skills described in the Vernon text (tracking, restating content, reflecting feelings, returning responsibility to the child, using the child's metaphor, and limit setting) you would use to respond to the child. Generate several different responses to each one, remembering that you can combine several kinds of skills in a single response.

1. Glenda, a 6-year-old, was referred because she seems to be extremely distressed about her parents' recent divorce. She comes into her third play therapy session frowning and crying, sits down, and says, "I hate my mom. I wanted to play, and she made me come here."

2. Lee Su (7) is a Chinese American. She has been referred for getting into repeated fights on the playground, which she has contended are started by other people. She arranges the green soldiers in one line and the tan soldiers in another line, and (with lots of sound effects - yelling ethnic slurs, screaming in pain) has the tan soldiers wipe out the green soldiers. As she is doing this, she seems to get angrier and angrier.
3. Christina, an 8-year-old whose presenting problem is anxiety and depression, begins to draw a picture, turns to you, and says, "I am going to paint this picture for you. What do you want me to paint?"
Component #6 Counseling At-Risk Children/Adolescents

1) Using McWhirter and colleagues' (2007) framework for prevention and intervention, discuss the types of interventions you would utilize and structures you would want to have in place to work with the following problems faced by children and adolescents at risk:

- Suicidal children and adolescents

- Substance abuse & addiction

- Depressive disorders in children and adolescents
2) When would you have to breach confidentiality and what obligations do you have to your young client with regard to privacy?
3) When is a referral to outside resources warranted?