Introduction
The current vocational treatment plan utilizes the information from Jennifer’s assessment to help establish goals and objectives that can be achievable. The goals focus on her current situation specifically around job environment. Subsequently, a treatment plan will be defined towards helping Jennifer find a solution to the problem before termination of the process.
Vocational Assessment Summary
Jennifer’s Employment History and Job Skills
Jennifer started her first job at 24 when she worked as a bank teller. Jennifer had stayed jobless until the last three years when she secured another job with an online distribution company where she works to date. In her current job, she is in charge of monitoring, inventory, and record-keeping, which should be updated all the time. Jennifer has been able to work in this position since she joined the company three years ago. Her qualification in the job market is a high school diploma.
Jennifer’s Current Employment Situation
Currently, Jennifer is not happy with her employment because she has not felt fulfilled for three years since she started this job. There are many factors around her current job that have contributed to this situation. The first factor is that her assignment involves and requires records to be updated each time transactions are conducted. Another possible factor leading to her current perception of the job is that she makes $11 per hour, which is not enough to meet her needs. This forces her to work overtime, since she is a single mother of two girls. Jennifer has considered applying for the management position to help her meet the ends but only has a high school diploma. Generally, the work environment has been a source of stress to her, and she has become anxious and developed thoughts of changing her career.
Interrelationships between Jennifer’s Work, Family, and Personal Life Roles
Career counseling is critical in helping someone make career choices, find jobs, think through career problems and explore opportunities. For the case of Jennifer, the suitable specific career counseling model would be the theory of person-environment fit (Savickas, 2019). It defines the relationships Jennifer has with the work environment, family, and the roles in her personal life. This explains the situation Jennifer is in with the working environment, she has not fitted well as far as her personal, family, and career life are concerned. In the first place, Jennifer seems not happy and fulfilled in her work. The client desires to be an independent woman and live with her two children and meet their needs. Similarly, she has recently developed an interpersonal issue with her coworkers. The general relationship that Jennifer has with the working environment is stressful and anxious, and she seems not to have peace at all.
Jennifer’s interrelationships can be analyzed based on the theory of person-environment fit because she seems to have issues with the work she is doing, the coworkers, and family issues. All these aspects make the working environment stressful and unsuitable for her success and meeting the needs (Edwards et al., 2018). From the concept of this theory, one achieves job satisfaction when their relationship with the work environment is positive. In the case of Jennifer, because of the bad relationship with the work environment, including her workload and personnel, she does not feel satisfied. Jennifer believes she does not receive enough compensation for the work she does, and that this affects the well-being of her family. Therefore, her psychological variables do not meet the work environment requirements making it unfit for her.
Potential Ethical or Legal Considerations Related to the Case
The case of Jennifer and her career life presents some potential ethical considerations. The ethical issue is related to Jennifer’s continuous stay at the workplace for three years despite her being unhappy and unfulfilled with the roles she plays in the company. When someone does not feel satisfied with the job, the work one performs may not be of high quality (Kuijpers et al., 2017). It is possible that the only reason Jennifer has stayed in the current job is to earn money irrespective of the results of the work done. This raises the ethical question of not performing at a satisfactory level. Another ethical issue arises following the bad relationship among the company workers, especially when it comes to poor relationship between Jennifer and other employees. It is expected that people work together in harmony to realize the goals of the company.
Formal Vocational Treatment Plan
Specific and Measurable Goals and Objectives
Jennifer needs to be subjected to vocational treatment, and the following are the goals and objectives of the treatment plan.
Short-term goals include
- Reduce the environmental stress
- Relief the symptoms of anxiety
- Work on improving career-related skills
- Help through proper and efficient financial usage
- Improve the social and cognitive skills
Long-term goals
- Improve the financial stability
- Achieve an excellent working relationship
- Attain happiness and job satisfaction
- Resolve issues related to employment
- Ensure Jennifer receives her permanent residence with her daughters
- Achieve economic independence
- Settle family-related issues
An Action Plan of Meeting the Goals and Objectives
The primary issue affecting Jennifer is the financial instability she is facing. Thus, steps taken should finally help Jennifer accept her financial condition or resolve employment issues that will assure her financial stability. The process will be followed by considering the financial planning and budgeting to understand where the deficit comes in after everything has been spent. It is, however, necessary for Jennifer to know that not all needs must be met; some can be foregone and handled at a later date. The next action is to examine the educational qualifications of Jennifer in relation to what she earns. She must understand that the job rewards align with the educational qualifications and the work skills she possesses (Brown, 2017). The client should be told not to fear about her qualifications for the job but rather create a positive rapport with the top management, work hard and try to apply for the job she wants. The counselor needs to walk through the journey their patient to help her solve the family issues or make them vary from what she does at the workplace.
A Description of How Progress towards Goals Will Be Evaluated
The progress towards goals will be evaluated based on Jennifer’s response towards the healing process. This involves observing her actions in respect to the short-term goals because it is expected that she will undergo some changes soon following the treatment. For instance, progress will be evaluated in terms of her stress level and how anxious she becomes about the new job. Similarly, the client should be able to drop some needs for finance in the short period as she looks forward to permanent financial stability. Thus, the measurement of progress will depend on the rate of accomplishing the goals in terms of changing the patient’s problem. Additionally, the counselor needs to pay attention to Jennifer’s perception of the importance of the treatment process in improving her condition.
A Termination Plan
The termination time is determined at the beginning of the counseling and treatment session. Therefore, the counselor needs to develop a working schedule highlighting the dates and the sessions depending on the patient’s situation (Kuijpers et al., 2017). However, in Jennifer’s case, the program will not be fixed but depend on when she normalizes and adjusts to the environment. The decision to terminate the sessions will be based on the client’s observation and Jennifer’s response to the treatment. She needs to be alerted that the sessions are coming to an end because of the improvements she made. The spacing will increase between the last meeting sessions before the final session is picked depending on the appropriate time the patient seems not to need counseling sessions (Perdrix et al., 2018). She will have opportunities to express herself and ask questions concerning how to progress beyond sessions. When treatment is finally terminated, a progress follow-up and monitoring process are to be conducted for as long as the client gets used to the work environment and solves financial issues.
Conclusion
From the treatment plan, Jennifer has never been satisfied with the current job and wants to change her career. She has a poor relationship with coworkers and the family’s needs have influenced her unsatisfactory behaviors because of the needs. Some goals that can help Jennifer include reducing the environmental stress, anxiety, and improving career skills to secure a better job. Similarly, she needs to work on her financial efficiency to attain stability before progressive termination is designed without affecting the healing process of the patient.
References
Brown, D. (2017). Career information, career counseling, and career development. Allyn & Bacon.
Edwards, J. R., Caplan, R. D., & Van Harrison, R. (2018). Person-environment fit theory. Theories of Organizational Stress, 28(1), 67-94. Web.
Kuijpers, M. A. C. T., Meijers, F., & Gundy, C. (2017). The relationship between the learning environment and career competencies of students in vocational education. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 78(1), 21-30. Web.
Perdrix, S., Stauffer, S., Masdonati, J., Massoudi, K., & Rossier, J. (2018). Effectiveness of career counseling: A one-year follow-up. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80(2), 565-578. Web.
Savickas, M. (2019). Career counseling (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.