Counseling Children and Adolescents.M3 Written Assignment: Expressive Approach

Direct interaction with children and adolescents is a key aspect of providing counseling to this population. In order to engage in effective interaction in a therapy setting, you must be comfortable and familiar with children and adolescents. Developing this comfort and familiarity takes time, however, and therefore should begin long before you are actually able to provide services.

 

Conduct the Session

For this assignment, you will begin by locating a child or adolescent to work with, perhaps one you know well, or perhaps one you do not. Either way, make sure it is okay with the child’s parent or guardian that you interact with him or her. You will then need to conduct a play, art, or other expressive approach session with the child or adolescent. Since you are not a qualified or certified counselor, you may not attempt to provide any type of counseling intervention. Rather, you will use the play or art session to make observations about the social and emotional development of the child, and to practice engagement and relationship building skills.

Important Note: Because, as a student, you are not a qualified or certified counselor, you may not attempt to provide any type of counseling intervention.

 

Summarize and Reflect

In a 3-4 page reflection paper, will write up a summary of the session and your observations. The paper should include elements such as what you learned about

the child’s cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical development
aspects of the activity that the child especially enjoyed, did not enjoy, or seemed to struggle with
how the child expressed feelings during the session
whether or not the activity was developmentally appropriate
reflections on the student’s own comfort level interacting with the child in this activity
what the student might do differently in an actual counseling session
Note: You must support your observations and conclusions with specific examples from the play or expressive session. In addition, please include supporting information from scholarly sources to substantiate your reflective points. What is a Scholarly Journal Article? is a brief video (2:48) that explains how this type of resource is different from popular sources. You may wish to view it as you search for supporting articles for this assignment.

Expectations and Additional Resources
All written assignments must reflect college-level writing skills, and cite all sources in APA style.