CHCFCS001 - Facilitate the Family Counselling Process

Assignment Task

Overview

In this assessment task you are required to read the questions and write complete responses in the spaces provided. The boxes expand as you type. Be as succinct as you can while answering completely.

This is an assessment of knowledge and skills gained through your reading and attendance at training delivery. Please refer to the Readings and Class Resources on the LMS and conduct your own research using reputable sources.

1A . Identify the current prevalence in Australia of the following issues for families 

• alcohol and other drugs issues
• financial hardship
• problem gambling
• mental health issues
• technology and communication issues (e.g., accessibility, overuse, misuse, impacts on family communication).

1B.  Identify key features of each of the above issues and describe possible impacts on family relationships and family functioning.

Identify referral options available for clients needing specialised interventions for the above concerns beyond, or in conjunction with, family counselling.

2. Why is the family systems approach a useful technique when working with families?

Describe and define what a Relationship Counsellor needs to know about a family system and how such a lens can help the counselling process.

3A. Develop a script for explaining to families at the commencement of counselling: 

Referring to confidentiality in family counselling and its limits, what to expect in the family counselling process.

Your script should include developmentally appropriate ways of communicating with children and adolescents.

3B.  Explaining the family counselling approach to clients.

Imagine that you are commencing counselliang with a family group of a heterosexual parental couple with a 7yo boy who has been showing externalising behaviours at school for the past 4 months, since the birth of his new baby sister.

• Develop script for how you would explain an attachment-based approach to family counselling to the parents.
• What skills / abilities would you want to coach the parents to develop to support them to appropriately respond to their son in sessions?
• How would you go about helping them to develop these skills?

4.  Identify the communication and rapport-building skills required in couple and family counselling practice and explain how they differ from individual counselling work.

How does the therapeutic relationship differ between individual, couple, and family counselling practice?

5.  How can relationship counsellors balance the needs and rights of parents and children in the family counselling practice?  

1. Illustrate your answer by describing how you would balance the needs and rights of the parents and children in the Thompson family case study (available to download in the assessment area)
2. Develop a family counselling contract for the Thompson Family including clearly defined SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) behavioural goals. 
3. What challenges and opportunities do you identify in developing a family counselling contract with the Thompson family? 
4. How would you seek to address the challenges you have identified? 

6.  How may attachment theory assist the counsellor to understand: 

1. Family relationships 
2. Counsellor interactions with clients’ significant other people, for example a client’s carer who is outside of the family system (secondary attachment)
3. And the counsellor’s own attachment issues

7.  The family systems approach views problems as a result of dysfunctional interactions and relationships within the family, rather than individual pathology. It sees the symptoms exhibited by one member as a reflection of the larger family system and the dynamics that exist within it. Therefore, the approach seeks to address issues in the system. 

What issues would a counsellor need to focus on in a family, using a family systems lens?

8. Family systems involves working with the entire family, or at least a subset of family members, to address a presenting problem.  

Name 3 techniques that a Relationship Counsellor may use to address a presenting problem.

 9.  Applying family and systemic approaches – case analysis – “Maria”  

Client: “Maria” 62yo female, divorced 10 years ago, now living with her widowed mother.  

Maria has 2 adult children: 

• Lina, 33yo, married with 2 children
• Gino, 36yo, married with 1 child

Maria’s former husband, Joe, was physically violent towards her during the marriage and was also abusive in other ways – financial abuse, emotional & psychological abuse. Maria used to minimise the violence and by saying to the children’s things like “don’t worry about me, I’m OK”.

She says she did this “for the children’s sake” believing that this would reduce their distress on witnessing what was going on.  She also concealed the abuse from her family and friends. Joe has not been physically violence towards her since the marriage ended and she took out an IVO against him (lapsed 9 years ago). She tells you that her former husband is “charming” to other people and that only her best friend, children and mother know how he treated her while they were married. 

Maria only comes into contact with Joe at social gatherings and she finds this difficult because she is triggered in his presence and he will make a point of coming up to her, standing too close to her and saying something nasty or a put-down when others are not listening. 

Maria says that she could cope with this when it only happened once or twice a year but that her children invite both of them to family gatherings more often now that they have young children themselves, and that she often comes into contact with Joe at times when they both happen to be visiting the children and grandchildren. On such occasions Joe treats her with contempt and puts her down in front of her children and grandchildren. Her children ignore this behaviour. Maria does not feel psychologically safe around Joe and tells you that her son and daughter don’t understand how distressing Maria finds his behaviour towards her.

Maria’s sleep has been affected and she has started going less often to visit the grandchildren. 

• How would you apply a systemic perspective to this case?
• Would you consider suggesting some family sessions with Maria and her adult children?? Explain your rationale.

10. Analysis of therapist-family dialogue:

In the example of therapist – family (adolescent boy and father) dialogue from p.77-8 and 80-81, in Hughes Attachment Focused Family Therapy . (Available to download in the assessment area) 

• What skills is the counsellor using? 
• What are the goals of this work? 
• Any comments you would like to make about the young person’s responses? 

11. There are three phases of therapy. 

• Name the three phases and describe the goals of each phase.
• Name the difficulties with the three phases in a family systems approach.

12. Terminating the Family Therapy sessions

Identify the goals and process of terminating with a family in a family counselling process. 

13. Sometimes it is appropriate to end a therapeutic relationship. 

• Identify the possible reasons for the Relationship Counselor to terminate the counselling with the family.
• Identify some of the possible responses from the family/clients.
• Identify the possible responses from the Relationships Counsellor 

14A. Family Conflict: What are the principles in managing family conflict? 

14B. Scenario 1: If a member of the family dominates the session in the room and doesn’t give space for others to talk. How would you address this and explain the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen option. 

14C. If a member of the family is triggered by how another family member is communicating and shows visible signs of distress, how would you address this and explain the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen option.  

In both scenarios identify the conflict style both people are displaying and design a process to successfully resolve the conflict. 

 14D. How would the conflict have observed in the above scenarios impact upon the relationship counsellor and the counsellor’s work?

What strategies are useful for the relationship counsellor to employ?

 15. Identify the way conflict may manifest in the family during counselling. 

16. Name some of the strategies useful in managing family conflict. 

17. Using the PACE model where the counsellor actively facilitates development of empathy skills in parents and children which facilitates positive interactions between parent and child to help to develop the child and parent attachment bond. 

Identify the core counsellors’ approach to PACE and give examples of statements or actions you may take when working within a family. 

18. When using a family violence trauma lens, consider the counselling modalities (previously addressed in Module 6) 

Identify 3 counselling modalities that you may use in family counselling when the family is traumatised, or family violence or mental illness is a feature. 

19. When children are added to the family system there are multiple relationship issues to consider.

• What is the role of the relationship counsellor when children are part of the family counselling process?
• What do the children need from a Relationship Counsellor?

20. Define and describe family systems where family counselling is contraindicated, consider trauma and family violence as well as mental ill-health

This CHCFCS001 - Arts and Humanities has been solved by our PhD Experts at My Uni Paper.