The Career Path Of Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor

The timeline in Fig 1.2 showing “events, high points and key moments in counseling history” since the beginning of the 20th century both interested and surprised me in several ways. Firstly, I was surprised to learn that, rather than evolving slowly in parallel with the medical profession in general in response to the needs of the mentally ill (perhaps more descriptive of the field of psychiatry), counseling as a profession was in fact pioneered by Frank Parsons, or at least by the vocational guidance movement that he represented (Granello, 2012, p. 14). It is interesting to me that career guidance is still an important part of counseling, (Granello, 2012, p. 18) since Frank Parsons struggled with this personally and identified it as a need in society. On consideration, I realize that it makes a great deal of sense that finding an enjoyable and appropriate career has a huge impact on personal well-being, and therefore one’s mental health. Frank Parsons identified an important aspect of society (lack of education regarding suitable professions) that he felt might contribute to its dysfunction, and wrote a number of books, including “Choosing a Vocation” (Granello, 2012, p. 14). Although at first this seemed to me a surprising initiator of the Counseling profession, it is probably quite a natural one.

Prompt: TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY “Describe a circumstance, obstacle or conflict in your life, and the skills and resources you used to resolve it. Did it change you? If so, how?”

I have wanted to be a counselor since my freshmen year of high school and in the counseling field there are many specialties that I can focus on. I am fairly certain that I want to specialize in helping people with substance abuse and their families. I have always focused my studies, interests, and work on things that will help me in this field and I have a lot of qualities that help to enhance me in my eventual career. There are difficulties when I get to practice also like what people perceive as correct counseling style, challenges with my gender and race, and finally creating my own counseling style and plans.

In working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor, I am learning the importance of quality individualizes services and how they can support people with disabilities to prepare for obtaining employment. I have been have been participating closely with individuals that have a disability to help them achieve greater levels of independence by assisting them to develop goals and look for opportunities for employment. I am finding out that you have to really put a lot of effort as a vocational counselor in gathering medical, educational and different evaluations to determine eligibility and to help with the planning process of assisting the individual to choose the right occupation for themselves. In planning for a consumer to reach their

Mental Health Counselor is the career I have decided to go for. It took me forever and a lot of thinking to decide exactly what I want to do with my life. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, self harming all within myself. I also dealt with watching my father abuse alcohol, and getting cancer and passing. My daughter is ADHD, ODD and suffers with anxiety. I also work in a group home taking care of mentally challenged people. Altogether I've dealt with a lot and I think experiencing everything I have, would make me understand and be a good mental health counselor.

Are there any events (local or global) or individuals that have been particularly influential in your life? If so, in what manner has such affected your journey or career choices?

A rehabilitation Counselor is focused with people who have disabilities that will want to achieve their personal, career, and independent living natural goals through a counselor.

It is with great pride and enthusiasm that I write to you today to express my intentions towards my future endeavors once graduating from your humble establishment with a degree in applied behavioral analysis. My intentions are to graduate from Saint Joseph 's University with a degree in applied behavioral analysis, then to proceed onto the next step in my career as a behavior specialist counselor, where I can help families by creating concrete goals and plans and models to measure these goals, as well as to ensure that parents are supplied with the resources required and an efficient team to help them.

Becoming a counselor was not my first choice career. I have a vivid memory from my childhood, I am unsure at which age, I was coloring an activity worksheet where you were supposed to circle and color what you wanted to be when you grew up. I don’t remember what I chose, but I remember that I circled almost every profession on that coloring sheet. My college career started very similar to that worksheet; I wanted to pursue so many different fields of study that at one point I had planned that I would double major. My eventual goal when I transferred to UNT was to pursue my undergrad studies in Communication Design, but I would go back to school later on in my life and get my degree in Counseling. I had this plan mainly for

My career plans and how I was going to achieve them was something that I have always thought about before I enrolled in school at the University of Phoenix. I have my Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Rehabilitation Services grom Southern University, and I decided to return to school to pursue my Master’s of Science Degree in Psychology at the University of Phoenix. My plan is to become a counselor, whether it is a rehabilitation counselor, mental health counselor, substance abuse counselor, or behavioral counselor. I chose to pursue this career because I enjoy

I believe the three thousand hours is going to be difficult. Although, I work in the human service field I provide case management services therefore I would have to find a job that involves counseling. As I look into changing jobs and I have to consider the financial cost it will be on my family. According to master in counseling website the mean salary for LPC counselors is between 42-55,000 and this information was taken from the bureau of labor statistic. Therefore, I have to consider taking a pay cut because I will be a beginning therapist making the least amount of money. However the job I have now I’m a supervisor at the top of my pay scale. For that reason my passion and commitment to be a therapist comes with some sacrifices.

Each of these tools has its unique way of correlating vocational fit with skills, ability, and personality. The cumulative record gives the counselor a look into the client’s educational, psychological, physical, and work records of the client (James & Gilliland, 2003). This information helps the counselor to understand the client’s performance, abilities, and how employers may view them, allowing for insight to the client’s problems and gives the counselor information to help the client identify appropriate alternatives (James & Gillilans,2003).

While career counselors have a wide range of assessment instruments they can utilize; choosing an instrument that is effective, reliable, economical, and cross-cultural can be challenging; however, when assessment instruments are chosen correctly, they can provide counselors with wealth of information regarding their client. Be that as it may, if career counselors neglect to consider all aspects of their client’s lives such as their worldview, cultural background, and ethnicity etc. assessments can yield invalid results and thus ineffective career counseling. Utilizing the O*Net Online as part of Naomi’s career assessment is recommended as it provides current trends within the workforce. An assessment that would benefit Naomi to prioritize what is important in her life would be occupational card sorts, which are created on a case by case basis by counselors to specifically address the needs of each client. According to Brott (2004), “personalized card sorts can be used to verify the counselor 's understanding of the client story and to validate the client 's preferred ways of being” (p. 194). Additionally, specific intruments such as Interest Inventories, Assessment of Aptitude tests, and Personality Assessments would also be benefical for Naomi’s

I am to assume the role of career counselor at a college, and proffer career/vocational recommendations to one John Lee, a Freshman at the college. These recommendations are to be based upon results from Mr. Lee’s completion of the “Neuroticism, Extroversion, & Openness-Revised” (NEO-R) personality assessment instrument, in addition to review of career goals questionnaire, school/work history, and personal interview with the student (Kirwan, 2014). The NEO-R is to serve only as a template to evaluate and consider vocational aspirations for Mr. Lee, and further careful deliberation is paramount in the selection of the occupation that will engage him for remainder of his vocational life.

Throughout week 4 I devoted to learn about Career Interests and John Holland’s career development theory. Personally, I developed an understanding Holland’s RIASEC codes. There were two different styles of career assessments based on Holland’s work and determining the three letter RIASEC code that best described me. The Holland’s career assessment I took was the online one. John Holland’s career development theory means that one is having to identify the patterns of interest through six different personality traits.