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1 Career Plan Brittany M. Hill Walden University COUN 6753: Career Counseling Dr. Janee Steele May 3, 2023

2 Career Plan Career planning should begin in childhood. It is important for someone to have knowledge and learning skills to determine a career pathway (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2022). This assignment will illustrate a career plan for a client, Jermel, who is undecided on his career pathway after high school. TO outline a plan for Jermel to determine options for meaningful and desirable work, Jermel will be completing a career plan with his clinical mental health counselor. This paper will outline that career plan by starting with a summary of Jermel’s situation, followed by the career plan. The career plan will describe three stages of counseling that Jermel and his counselor will go through: exploration, insight, and action (Niles, et al., 2001). Case Study Jermel is a 17-year-old male high school senior. He was adopted when he was two years old and grew up in a multiracial home. Jermel grew up in a multi-racial home; he is black, his adoptive mother is Puerto Rican, and his adoptive father is German. His adoptive mother is a speech pathologist at the elementary school he attended, and his adoptive father owns a struggling garage door company. Jermel was diagnosed with ADHD (combined type) in fourth grade and has recently been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which he is currently taking medication for. Prior to starting medication, Jermel experienced frequent worry and panic attacks; however, the medication seems to help him focus on his tasks and manage his symptoms of anxiety. Jermel also attends weekly counseling sessions with a licensed professional counselor. Jermel sees his counseling sessions as an escape from his day-to-day stressors. Jermel’s interests include playing video games and reading fantasy novels, but he does not have friends or anyone he shares these interests with. He does not enjoy social situations and prefers working alone. Jermel’s parents are encouraging him to explore different college options, but he is afraid to commit to something he is unsure about completing. He is feeling overwhelmed with the application

3 process for college due to being undecided about a major. Jermel is willing to meet with his counselor to discuss options after high school, but he is unsure of where to begin in the process. Career Plan A counseling relationship takes place in different stages. These stages help build the relationship between counselor and client and encourage growth throughout the sessions. The stages of counseling discussed in this career plan are: exploration, insight, and action (Niles, et al., 2001). Stage 1: Exploration In the exploration stage of counseling, the therapeutic relationship between counselor and client is developed (Niles, et al., 2001). To encourage Jermel to tell his story and express his thoughts and feelings, the counselor should utilize basic counseling skills like active listening, reflection of feelings, and open questions (Niles, et al., 2001). One way to build rapport as a counselor with a client would be to use open-ended questions. Open-ended questions will encourage the client to explain their answers more than just giving simple one-word answers. Using questions that require the client to explain their answers will encourage the client to talk more for the counselor to be able to understand their answer. Another basic counseling skill that can be used to build rapport is reflections of feeling and meaning. Utilizing reflections with a client can encourage a client to express what they are feeling because they will feel heard by the counselor. It is important for a client to know they are being heard and understood and this will likely lead to them opening up more about their situation. For the sociocultural factors that impact Jermel’s career story, a counselor should minimize any biases that they may have regarding any portion of Jermel’s life. It will also be important for a counselor to conduct research about the stressors that may come to Jermel for being in a multicultural adoptive family. If Jermel understands that the counselor is knowledgeable about what he may be going through, he will be more likely to share what he is feeling and the hesitations he has about his career path. Stage 2: Insight

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4 In the insight stage of the counseling relationship, clients “gain new and deeper understandings of the factors underlying their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors” (Niles, et al., 2001, p. 232). During this stage of counseling, the client identifies their strengths and different coping strategies they can use to implement change in their life (Niles, et al., 2001). Skills that counselors can use in this stage include challenging, self-disclosure, and immediacy (Niles, et al., 2001). Self-disclosure as a counselor can assist the client in recognizing different strategies they can use to get through their current situation. Self- disclosure by the counselor can also deepen the relationship between the client and counselor and build more rapport after the exploration stage of the counseling relationship. To identify Jermel’s interests for a career, the counselor can use an informal assessment like a forced-choice activity (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2022). A forced-choice activity is where the client is asked to make a choice between two interests or values that are different (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2022). Facilitating this informal assessment can assist the counselor and Jermel in determining what is important to Jermel in his career pathway. A formal assessment that the counselor can use to assess Jermel can be the Career Factors Inventory (CFI) (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2022). The CFI can assist Jermel in determining what might be causing his hesitations in the decision-making process related to a career (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2022). This assessment addresses different areas including: “Need for Information, Need for Self- Knowledge, Career Choice Anxiety, and Generalized Indecisiveness” (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2022). Since Jermel has a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, this could be helpful in determining what aspect of his career choice might be causing him anxiety. Stage 3: Action The action stage of the counseling relationship involves the counselor and the client coming up with a plan of action, practice skills, and make appropriate changes in their life (Niles, et al., 2001). During this stage, the counselor will continue to utilize basic counseling skills along with direct guidance

5 and information needed (Niles, et al., 2001). The counselor can interpret the assessment results from the insight stage and talk through the career options that will best suit the client. The counselor can also give resources for more information on specific career fields that the client is interested in. Some of these resources can be things like brochures, books, and websites that outline the requirements for entering that field. A plan that the counselor can assist Jermel in would be to encourage him to learn and practice assertive communication skills to have conversations with his parents, who are pushing him to go to college when he desires to take a gap-year. Assertive communication skills can help Jermel stand up for himself and work towards something he wants to do rather than doing something to make others happy. If Jermel is still wanting to take a year off of school before attending college after the counseling sessions, he will be able to appropriately and assertively tell his parents his decision with appropriate support for his decision, if necessary. A follow-up activity that the counselor could utilize with Jermel would be to conduct any of the assessments used at the conclusion of the counseling sessions and after Jermel has had time to gather more information on the possible careers. Performing these assessments after Jermel has had the opportunity to research the careers can be helpful in that Jermel might have different viewpoints of certain values that are important to him after reading more about the careers he is considering. This could give Jermel and the counselor another starting point to consider other career paths if the results are vastly different from the first time. Conclusion In conclusion, Jermel and his counselor can utilize different assessment strategies combined with a variety of counseling skills to determine the best option for Jermel after high school. Since making career-decisions is critical to one’s livelihood, it is important that Jermel be able to make informed decisions and communicate his decisions effectively. After engaging in career counseling with a licensed

6 counselor, Jermel will be able to make informed decisions and have resources he can use to make a final decision about what he wants to do after high school. Career counseling could also assist Jermel in learning how to find the information on his own if he wants to make a change later in life.

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7 References Niles, S. G., Goodman, J., & Pope, M. (2001). The career counseling casebook: A resource for students, practitioners, and counselor educators (pp. 231-235). Broken Arrow, OK: National Career Development Association. Niles, S. G., & Harris-Bowlsbey, J. (2022). Career development interventions (6 th ed.). Pearson.