360-degree Life Contingency Plan for Student Development in Counselor Education Programs

1. Canadian Counseling and Psychotherapy Association 2014 Annual Conference; May 7, 2014 Marilyn Haight, Ph.D. and Tiffany Rush-Wilson, Ph.D. Reframing the Student Development process in Counselor Education programs to a 360-degree Life Contingency Plan approach

2. Working operational definition '360 degree feedback' and/or Life Contingency Plan (LCP) are referred to because students working on a plan receive feedback from the full circle of perspectives: faculty members, site supervisors, student development committee members, and sometimes others, such as academic advising, academic leadership, Code of Conduct officer, Student Affairs officer, Ombudsman, or legal services.

3. Goals • This session is designed to assess and address student development concerns across multiple domains. • Further, it is designed to discuss and share resources and strategies between presenters and attendees. • Finally, the presenters will propose using a 360-degree Life Contingency Plan model for student development plans. • Examples of 360-degree support for students will be discussed.

4. Learning Outcomes • Participants will gain an understand the WHY of student development before developing the WHAT and HOW of the process • Participants will be able to discuss counselor educators’ ethical obligations in gatekeeping, client welfare, and remediation efforts. • Participants will be able to discuss current legal concerns, expectations, and risk management decision making processes as applied to student development issues.

5. Learning Outcomes, cont. • Participants will be able to identify resources and strategies to use in assisting students to successfully complete development plans. • Participants will be able to identify a variety of professional conduct concerns.

6. Contingency plan or crisis management? • Life happens: • students encounter a number of impediments in attempting to complete a degree. • Institutional support around issues of medical, psychiatric, and life events are essential supports. • Life issues in the classroom: • Faculty are not always aware of the chronic physical or mental illnesses of students. • Outreach typically occurs only after the student’s life events have spiraled out of control. • Your experiences?

7. Important considerations • Role of Cultural factors in development of self-regulation • Plans involve emotional labor • Often includes narratives of personal tragedies and medical events that can cause emotional reactions. • Barriers to completion of support plan

8. Contingency planning vs crisis management • Contingency planning is the process of preparing for potential emergencies, while crisis management is the overall management of emergencies when they do occur. • Predicting the possibilities • Setting the plan • Crisis hits or other unexpected emergencies

9. What is a life contingency plan? • A contingency plan is an outline of procedures to follow in case of a major event, such as a major accident, critical health care concern, loss of job or housing, divorce, (marriage?), legal concerns, etc. • A contingency plan is a written way of saying, that should a problem arise, you have thought of ways to prevent the loss of vital information or reduce the impact to your overall wellness. • Consider in comparison to community based crisis plans • Examples? • Parallel process

10. Benefits to students • High touch experience • Increased student engagement, persistence, retention, and degree attainment • Academic caregivers • Advocacy and coaching in and beyond the classroom • Key contributors to learning • Caring attitude is a necessary part of our profession • Support of the student as a fellow human being

11. Referrals for 360-degree LCP • Threats: class size; online and f2f environments have unique challenges • Opportunities: Foundational courses, PDP • Prevention rather than intervention • 1:1 communication with student • Role of faculty advising • Role of academic advising • Student skill gaps in non-cognitive factors and in academic gaps • Informal assessments • Gatekeeping

12. Theory to Practice • Scaffolding; Theory of Proximal Development (Vygotsky) • Developmental Theory of Supervision (Bernard & Goodyear) • Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986) • SCT affirms there is a triadic interaction effect between personal factors (intrapersonal), behavior (professional development), and environment.

13. Elements of a life contingency plan • Identify potential barriers or hiccups to success • Identify and prioritize impact of events • Identify and implement preventive controls and measures to reduce the effects of disruptions • Develop recovery strategies; return to optimal function • For LCP to be successful, continuously reexamine areas of importance/potential impact

14. Our model: 4 key areas • Your faculty mentor: (name, phone #) • Date: (important to view as a living document) • Degree & Specialization • Expected Graduation Date: • Emergency Contact (name, relationship, and phone • FERPA Contact (name, relationship, and phone • Release of Information form completed and returned? ___Yes ___No

15. 2nd element: Professional Development: Your faculty mentor will work with you to discuss your responsibilities and plan of action in the event of a crisis or other interruption which affects your ability to complete your probation period and plan of study. Additionally, your mentor will help you to evaluate, organize, and plan for your next steps toward program completion. Your responses to the following items will help your faculty mentor in providing guidance and support.

16. Professional Development, cont. Please address the following prompts with at least one paragraph for each question: • • Why are you obtaining your MS in Mental Health Counseling? • • What barriers have you encountered that led to academic probation or program dismissal? • • What have you done to work through those barriers? • • What supports and resources have you already accessed? • • What support do you feel would be helpful right now to help you move forward? • • What additional support do you feel you might need beyond ________ (the term noted on your petitions letter or conditional readmission letter)? • • Provide three date/time options that you can be available for weekly or bi-weekly teleconference with your faculty mentor.

17. 3rd element: • Course completion plan • Clinical and Curricular Training • Skill activation or enhancement needed? • Do you feel that your skills are currently sufficient for you to be successful in your next residency or field experience? • Discuss any barriers or concerns that you might have regarding skill development

18. 4th Element: Wellness plan • Take some time to evaluate how well you are caring for yourself. • How well do you currently manage stress? • Who are your support people?

19. Tier 1 support: high virtual touch • Students meeting higher risk factors for non-success were placed into “Tier One” where they would be targeted with proactive outreach services, paired with a faculty mentor, and provided with a structured, formative support plan targeted to the specific behavioral, skill, or professional competencies that had been identified by faculty members, site supervisors, or other academic team members

20. Tier 2 support • Where more self-paced, less staff intensive resources would be created and provided. (example: 5-year completion; conditional re-admissions, wellness plans).

21. Frontline for success • By having a life contingency plan, the student can draw from her/his identified resources in a purposeful manner and potentially be successful in their return to satisfactory life/work/professional balance and ultimately fully matriculate through their plan of study. • Creating connections with institutional and professional resouces

22. Holistic approach to ease the process for students and faculty mentors • Students deserve a real shot at success • When faculty members work closely with other academic caregivers, further behaviors of concern or code of conduct violations may be avoided. • Collaboration leads to positive results for students

23. Conclusion • Having a well considered, purposeful back up plan is important • resources and tools • …and something other than EXIT, moving to a different program, program dismissal… • No need to recreate the wheel…