Client’s Advocacy Essay

Abstract Advocacy is an important aspect of every counselor’s role; therefore, counselors need to help remove environmental barriers that hamper client’s well-being by increasing the client’s sense of personal power and to foster environmental changes that reflect greater responsiveness to client’s sense of personal needs. Outreach, empowerment, social justice, and social action are all apart of advocacy. Counselors need to help the client prevent psychological distress by helping them develop resources and strengths while reducing negative influences. There are three models: the wheel of wellness model, the indivisible self- model, and advocacy. These models emphasize the importance of enhancing individual strengths and environmental resources and decreasing individual limitations and social stresses. Sally Jo Jacobs, 34, Female client whom is Caucasian and divorced with four children and two living at home, youngest is living in Arizona with his Father, her ex-husband She hasn’t seen him since ’03. She is divorced from him because he was abusive to her physically and mentally. Her oldest son is living In Seattle and working, going to college, and has his own radio show from the college at Green River Community College. Client has one older sister, who lives in Alabama, which is on her 5th marriage due to her inability to deal with the abuse sustained when they were growing up. The client has two younger brothers, who were abused, but not sexually by their father. Her and her children are now living in the area with no family support or even communication with her parents. Client states she has a violent relationship with her father. Client states her relationship with her mother is on and off. The client was referred by her regular Physician for depression and unable to come up with healthy coping skills. The client doesn’t drink but twice a month, quit smoking in ’03, doesn’t gamble, doesn’t do street drugs, but is on prescription drugs due to chronic pain from a previous work injury and her physical abusive ex-husband. She loved working on cars and trucks, roller skating, going 4x4ing, gardening and yard work. She states that she has a very limited ability to do these things she loved to do and is having a hard time dealing with the fact that she can no longer do the things she loved to do. Client states she is taking Percocet 7.5 325 mg, 6 pills in a 24 hour period of time, Cymbalta 60mg in the morning, Flexerall,10 mg and a sleep aid at night. It is important for the counselor to be aware of what medications the client is on in order to help in the relation to the client’s well-being. Client states that she has nothing to do and she thinks about what happened when she was growing up with the abuse and her accident on a constant basis, which leads her to depression. She says that when she was growing up there was sexual and mental abuse by her father, that her father abused her and her sister when their mom was working or out bowling. She has very specific memories, she remembers from when she was in a crib to her last day of high school, which was the last time her father touched her in an inappropriate manner. â€Å"Childhood abuse and neglect may be markers for other factors that have an impact on the developing child or may share with PTSD a common origin in a disrupted and disorganized childhood. Another concern is that previous research has suggested that abused and neglected children are at increased risk for early behavior problems and conduct disorder. Behavior problems in childhood or adolescence may be associated with increased risk for engaging in risk y behaviors. In turn, such behaviors may lead to increased risk of exposure to traumatic events and to subsequent PTSD. A third possibility is that childhood victimization may be associated with PTSD through its effect on a person’s lifestyle, which places the person more or less at risk for exposure to traumatic events and, ultimately, PTSD. PTSD, such as low levels of education and extroversion, that serve to expose individuals to social roles and environments associated with high risk for victimization.† (Cathy, 1999.). This learner believes that she stayed in abusive and unhealthy relationships because of what her father did to her as a child and now she is experiencing depression and PTSD. The goal of this client is to empower her to solve her problems independently by helping her understand herself and to help her have the ability to problem-solve. The counselor needs to spend time assessing the seriousness of the concern presented to her and provide structure to the counseling process (such as understanding the conditions, procedures, and nature of counseling), and helping the clie nt take initiative in the change process. The goal for this client is to get her help for her depression with tools and education to help her work through what her father and ex-husband have put her through. My first priority is to build trust, rapport, and be able to set goals and design a treatment plan for change. The counselor will need to build up her psychological health by helping her build coping skills, self-esteem, social support, personal power, problem solving skills, self- care, sense of humor, sense of control, sense of worth, and stress management. Because of her abuse, she has developed depression and stress. The prevention programs the counselor needs to use for this client to help with stress is identifying the source of the stress, recognizing the physical and emotional consequences of stress, and learning and implementing adaptive coping responses. Strength-based Wellness counseling interventions may help abused survivors develop coping skills to enhance both overall quality of life and everyday functioning across multiple domains, while also providing a healthy foundation from which to explore and reframe their abuse experience. One of the most common interventions with adult women survivors is trauma-focused, or exposure-based, treatment, where the sexual abuse experience is reviewed in some way. Trauma focused interventions are based on the notion that the meaning â€Å"attach[ed] to the abuse, as well as the personal impact, is imbedded in the details of the experience† And therefore requires in-depth review of the abuse experience (Hodges & Myers, 2010). Fostering positive growth is an appropriate therapeutic goal: posttraumatic growth increases positive feelings of self, self-efficacy, and resiliency, which lay the foundation for continued Improvement in other areas of life. Wellness-focused interventions offer clients a positive lens for viewing their strengths and strategies for using those strengths to cope with the issues created by their sexual abuse history. Wellness-focused interventions validate the individual and the fact that the important thing is not why the individual survived but how. Advocacy is an important factor in every counselor’s role and it serves two purposes: to increase client’s sense of personal power and to foster environmental changes that reflect greater responsiveness to client’s personal needs (Gladding & Newsome, 2010). In order to help the client with advocacy, I would join the Montana Coalition against domestic and sexual violence and get my client guidance through them. The Montana Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (MCADSV) is a statewide coalition of individuals and organizations working together to end domestic and sexual violence through advocacy, public education, public policy, and p rogram development. Our mission is to support and facilitate networking among our member organizations while advocating for social change in Montana. Currently, MCADSV represents over 50 programs across Montana that provides direct services to victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their children. In addition, the membership includes other nonprofit and government organizations and individuals (professionals and members of the general public) who are interested in addressing domestic and sexual violence in a way that holds offenders accountable and provides support for the people they victimize. Our membership is open to anyone who is in accord with their philosophy. Their philosophy is â€Å"We base our actions and interactions on the following basic tenets; we advocate for policy that supports and/or forwards them; and we work to increase public awareness on issues related to them. We believe all women have the right to live a life free of violence or the threat of violence. Women have the right to freedom from violations of their personal autonomy and physical integrity on the street, in the home, at the workplace, and in the Coalition. Furthermore, women should not have to restrict their freedom of movement, their bodies, or their activities in order to be safe. We believe all women have the right to make their own decisions regarding sexual and reproductive matters, lifestyles, finances, education, and employment. We believe religious beliefs and practices are a matter of personal conscience and individual choice, and a Montana Coalition member shall neither promote nor discourage a particular religious belief in the course of his or her work. We believe classism, racism, ableism, ageism, homophobia (and all forms of elitism) are attitudes that serve to divide people who might otherwise join forces. As such, they interfere with women’s ability to pool their efforts and reach their full potential. Our membership is open to people of all backgrou nds. Furthermore, survivors of violence represent an essential constituency in our movement, and the Montana Coalition strongly encourages full participation by and equity for survivors† (MSADSV, 2010). MSADSV’s goals are to eliminate all forms of oppression, provide support and networking opportunities and training, and to encourage increased awareness and understanding of domestic and sexual violence and the concerns of survivors and to explore and support innovative policy approaches to issues related to domestic and sexual violence. This website has a lot of information for the client to get additional help and tools for her recovery. During the advocacy with the client, the counselor needs to be compassionate and show commitment in order to provide motivation to take action. The counselor needs to use verbal and non-verbal skills in order to be an effective counselor. Some skills the counselor needs to have is integrity, flexibility, empathy, patience, persistence, and resourcefulness. The client needs to have outreach, empowerment, social justice, and social action. Outreach involves reaching out to vulnerable populations in the community and helping clients find new ways to cope with the stressors. Empowerment is a process which the client gains resources and skills they will need to have more control over their environments and lives. Empowerment is important in this case because it helps the abused woman become aware of inappropriate use of power and privilege that her partner was claiming. Social justice is promoting access and equity to ensure full participation of all people in the life of a society as well as a belief system that values fair and equal treatment for all members of society. Social action derives from the belief system, resulting in the actions taken to promote equal rights. The counselor is involved in confronting barriers faced by clients. Abusive relationships has a significant and pervasive impact on individuals, producing a variety of mental, emotional, relational, physical, and trauma symptoms. Most therapeutic interventions focus primarily on reliving or retelling, in great detail, the sexual abuse experience. However, many clients lack a positive sense of self, an internal focus of control, and an ability to view the abuse as only part of which they are rather than the defining elements. Through a focus on Wellness factors, therapists can help adult women recognize their strengths and use them both in and outside of sessions to create and sustain positive lifestyle change. Helping clients experience positive outcomes of Wellness choices is empowering and facilitates their ability to invest in and cope with the healing process. Considering the multiple challenges many survivors bring to counseling, these outcomes are extremely important. A wellness-based intervention may increase self-efficacy, resiliency, and awareness of healthy coping skills, resulting in positive changes in everyday functioning. Such changes are inherently helpful to the survival process and can offer survivors valuable tools with which to approach future experiences. Therapists need to consider symptom presentation and prioritize the goals for therapy accordingly. Once safety is established, therapists and clients can incorporate a Wellness intervention into a range of treatment options, positive growth can occur simultaneously with distressing emotions. As with any therapeutic intervention, the therapist must continually assess the client’s experience with the intervention and alter interventions when necessary. References Cathy, S. W. (1999). Posttraumatic stress disorder in abused and neglected children grown up. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 156(8), 1223-9. http://search.proquest.com/docview/220471620?accountid=27965 Gladding, S.T., & Newsome, D.W. (2010). Clinical Mental Health Counseling in a Community and Agency Setting. (3rd Ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education. Hodges, E. A., & Myers, J. E. (2010). Counseling Adult Women Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Benefits of a Wellness Approach. Journal Of Mental Health Counseling, 32(2), 139-153. Montana Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (2010). Retrieved from- http://mcadsv.com/