STUDENT GUIDE FOR Assessment Task 2: ESSAY (35%) Due date: Tuesday 23rd May (Week 11) 12PM (NOON) Students will write an individual essay based on ONE of the TWO SCENARIOS. Students can CHOOSE their own scenario. After selecting ONE (1) of the scenarios presented to you below, you are to write a 1500 word essay (+/- 10%) Your essay should include analysis and synthesis of research. You are required to reference at least five academic sources (e.g., textbooks, articles). The essay must be submitted electronically through ‘Turnitin’ on Moodle. The essay must be submitted as a word document. Turnitin generates originality reports. As a general guide work returning an originality score above 15% will be randomly checked, with those scoring above 20% being checked thoroughly. This means Turnitin will check your essay for possible plagiarism and collusion. Marking criteria can be found on Moodle. Details of task In both of the following scenarios, you are a counsellor of the client. Your essay should critically reflect on how communication with your counsellor should take place. Specifically, cover the following points:  What model of communication do you believe would be most appropriate for the client?  How would you develop rapport with the client?  What communication strategies would you employ to facilitate effective communication, and how would you implement these strategies?  What do you believe to be some barriers to effective communication with this client (hint: also consider socio-cultural factors here) and how might you overcome these barriers?  Can you think of any ethical considerations?  What other health professionals would you communicate with to discuss your client? Specifically what details would you discuss? What are some ethical considerations of such communication? In addition to critically reflecting on this topic, your essay should also include analysis and synthesis of research. STRUCTURE of ASSESSMENT Cover Sheet  Include your name, title of essay, and word count Introduction  The introduction should begin on a new page after the cover sheet. The title of your essay is the heading (do not write introduction)  The first paragraph should introduce the essay – inform the reader which scenario you have chosen  Present a map of your essay (the topics to be discussed and the order)  References will not be necessary in this introduction  The introduction should not be more than 150 words Body  In the body of the essay, you fulfil the promises of the introduction  The body of this essay should cover these topics: o What model of communication do you believe would be most appropriate for the client? o How would you develop rapport with the client? o What communication strategies would you employ to facilitate effective communication, and how would you implement these strategies? o What do you believe to be some barriers to effective communication with this client (hint: also consider socio-cultural factors here) and how might you overcome these barriers? o Can you think of any ethical considerations? o What other health professionals would you communicate with to discuss your client? Specifically what details would you discuss? What are some ethical considerations of such communication?  It is up to you to organise this information into a cohesive, clear essay. You should decide how to group information, what information needs referencing, how many paragraphs your body should have.  Your body should be no more than 1200 words. Conclusion  The conclusion is the last paragraph of your essay, and should integrate and summarise what you have discussed  Conclusion should be no more than 150 words References  Your reference list should begin on a new page  Your reference list should just say ‘References’ at the top, no bold, no underline, normal font  Your reference list should include the full reference for all in-text citations, written in APA form Formatting  Your essay should be double spaced, 12pt times new roman font  Every reference in your reference list should be included as an in-text citation (i.e., appears in the essay), and vice-versa  Please provide page numbers  There is no specific title to save your essay as SCENARIO 1/2 You are a counsellor and you have recently started seeing a client, Katherine, who was referred to you from a medical GP in the area. The client, Katherine is a 25 year old Indigenous woman, single with no children. Katherine has always considered herself a slightly nervous person who seems to scare easily. Last year, one of Katherine’s friends experienced a fire in their kitchen, and Katherine has spent a lot of time recently listening to her friend’s experience. About a month ago, Katherine arrived at her fiancé’s apartment while he was cooking a special dinner. The entire time at her fiancé’s place, Katherine was afraid that something would catch fire on the stove. After he finished cooking, Katherine delayed the start of dinner while she rigorously cleaned the stove and made sure that all the burners were turned off. Throughout dinner, she was distracted by the stove and was constantly looking at it, to the point of completely ignoring her fiancé. After a short argument, she left halfway through dinner and went home. After they made up, she again went over to her fiancé’s apartment, only to find that he had placed a sheet over the stove so that she “wouldn’t be distracted by it”. Upon seeing this, Katherine became hysterical and started screaming about fire. She ran into the kitchen, ripped the sheet away, and began checking the knobs and burners to make sure they were turned off. When her fiancé attempted to calm her down, she pushed him to the floor and kept yelling. Eventually, he kicked her out and threatened to call the police. Afterwards, her fiancé told her friends what happened, and they have been wary of Katherine and avoiding her ever since. Whenever Katherine sees a stove, she immediately imagines flames bursting out of it, setting the kitchen ablaze. She becomes preoccupied with thoughts of fire and has great difficulty shifting her attention. In response, she has developed a few rituals to calm herself down. Often, she will turn the burners on all the way and slowly count backward from 10 as she turns each one off. If it doesn’t turn off right as she reaches zero, she repeats the process. Furthermore, the knobs on the stove must be absolutely clean, as Katherine is convinced that drips and residue can interfere with turning the stove completely off. It’s not unusual for Katherine to call in sick to work and spend hours cleaning and checking the stove. Last year, she used all of her sick days by mid-August. To get extra sick days, Katherine recently went to her local General Practitioner (she does not have a regular GP). Her General Practitioner thought Katherine might also benefit from speaking to a counsellor, and referred Katherine to you. SCENARIO 2/2 You are a counsellor who has been seeing a new client, Nicos, for just over a month (2 sessions). Nicos is a 65 year old retired farmer of Australian/Greek heritage. He sold his farm just over a year ago and moved with his wife, Barbara (Babs), closer to the city where their son and daughter-in-law live. He decided to sell up after Babs said they were getting too old to run a working farm. They are now about a 40 minute drive from where their son, daughter-in-law and their 2 children, a boy aged 12 and a girl aged 5, live. Nicos and Babs have not seen much of their children previously as the journey from the farm took over 6 hours. Since the house move, Nicos’s activity levels have dropped enormously. Without the farm, it is hard for Nicos to find things to keep him active and entertained; his whole life, his identity, was built around the farm. He spends most of his day sitting in front of the television and goes for the occasional walk to the corner shop to buy a newspaper. His sedentary lifestyle is worrying Babs, who says it is like he has just “stopped”. He has gone from doing extreme labour to being lost about what to do with himself. Babs keeps herself busy by doing housework, going for walks, visiting the grandchildren and she’s started going to a yoga class at the local Seniors’ Community Health Centre twice a week. Nicos says he is feeling more isolated than he did on the farm. With the depression taking over, Nicos doesn’t want the grandchildren to remember their grandad as being miserable and worthless so he avoids seeing them as much as possible. This situation has created tension between Nicos and his daughter-in-law, who thinks he’s just being aloof. Nicos would desperately like to be involved in his family’s lives and also to feel less isolated in his marriage. Nicos was not referred to you by a GP, and feels a bit awkward about, as he says, “the whole counselling thing”. His wife attended the first session with him, and stated he needed to talk to someone because he seems ‘depressed’. Nicos does not see medication as an option, and is uncomfortable even talking about antidepressants. Assessment Task 2: ESSAY FAQs Q. Will you be uploading readings again this time? Nope! This time you will have to find your own references Q. Can I go over 1500 words? You are allowed to go over/under 10%, which means your essay must be between 1350 – 1650 words. Q. Are my references part of the word count? No. The word count does NOT include in text citations and reference list Q. Is there marking criteria for this assessment? Yes! Please ensure you consult the marking criteria, which is uploaded in the assessment section on Moodle Q. I need help with referencing… At university, referencing will become a natural way of life for you. Referencing your work will communicate to your marker that you have accessed the appropriate sources during your assignment. You will note different programs use different referencing systems (APA, Harvard, Chicago). However, in the health sciences and education APA is the commonly used referencing style. APA (the American Psychological Association) is a style of referencing. There are specific ways you present different sources. To read about what referencing is and the importance of referencing, please visit this link: https://federation.edu.au/current-students/learning-and-study/online-helpwith/referencing For specific help with APA referencing, please visit this link: http://federation.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/313328/FEDUNI-GENERALGUIDE-TO-REFERENCING-2016-EDITION_ed.pdf and go to PAGE 9