Critique the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker

Many assessment principles are the same for children and adults; however, unlike with adults/older adults, where consent for participation in the assessment comes from the actual client, with children it is the parents or guardians who must make the decision for treatment(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay). Issues of confidentiality, privacy, and consent must be addressed. When working with children, it is not only important to be able to connect with the pediatric patient, but also to be able to collaborate effectively with the caregivers, other family members, teachers, and school counselors/psychologists, all of whom will be able to provide important context and details to aid in your assessment and treatment plans.(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

Some children/adolescents may be more difficult to assess than adults, as they can be less psychologically minded. That is, they have less insights into themselves and their motivations than adults (although this is not universally true). The PMHNP must also take into consideration the child’s culture and environmental context. Additionally, with children/adolescents, there are lower rates of neurocognitive disorders superimposed on other clinical conditions, such as depression or anxiety, which create additional diagnostic challenges. (Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

In this Discussion, you review and critique the techniques and methods of a mental health professional as the practitioner completes a comprehensive, integrated psychiatric assessment of an adolescent. You also identify rating scales and treatment options that are specifically appropriate for children/adolescents. (Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay

The client has been referred to a social worker by his medical provider concerned with her depression. Adolescent depression is a life-threatening concern due to its association with suicide. When handling adolescents, there is a need to note the client’s appearance, concentration, and orientation (Western Australian Clinical Training Network [WACTN], 2016). In this case, the social worker did well to ask about the client’s sense of the situation but should also note the client’s dress and concentration as presented through the assessment. Moreover, it is crucial to introduce oneself, inform the client of what you intend to do, establish confidentiality, and gain informed consent (WACTN, 2016). In this case, the social worker failed to introduce herself, gain informed consent, or establish levels of confidentiality with the client, which could partly explain why the client was hesitant to explain whatever was going on with him.(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

Furthermore, it is crucial to note levels of behavior, eye contact, cooperativeness, voice and language, and motor activity when assessing adolescents for depression and suicide risks (WACTN, 2016). These aspects of an assessment provide crucial information on a client’s status to augment clinical judgments. Besides, it is crucial to gain collateral history from caregivers and parents, which provides critical information that would not have been possible to obtain from the client’s self-report (Owoyemi et al., 2021). Significantly, an appropriate adolescent risk assessment tool is necessary for effective screening for suicide risks.(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

Screening for adolescent risks and depression can be challenging, and screening tools allow mental health personnel to identify risky behavior before talking to the adolescent client. The adolescent risk assessment tools allow mental health personnel to identify risks and establish appropriate interventions for positive screening outcomes (Brahmbhatt et al., 2019). An appropriate scale for assessing depression in adolescents is the Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ADRS), the Beck Depression Inventory, and Patient Health Questionnaire for Adolescents are crucial for screening and assessing the degree of depression in adolescents (Patra & Kumar, 2021). Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSR) and Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) tool are appropriate for screening for suicide in adolescents (Horowitz et al., 2020; Brahmbhatt et al., 2019).(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

References

Brahmbhatt, K., Kurtz, B. P., Afzal, K. I., Giles, L. L., Kowal, E. D., Johnson, K. P., … & Workgroup, P. (2019). Suicide risk screening in pediatric hospitals: clinical pathways to address a global health crisis. Psychosomatics, 60(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psym.2018.09.003(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

Horowitz, L. M., Snyder, D. J., Boudreaux, E. D., He, J. P., Harrington, C. J., Cai, J., … & Pao, M. (2020). Validation of the ask suicide-screening questions for adult medical inpatients: a brief tool for all ages. Psychosomatics, 61(6), 713-722.

Owoyemi, P., Salcone, S., King, C., Kim, H. J., Ressler, K. J., & Vahia, I. V. (2021). Measuring and Quantifying Collateral Information in Psychiatry: Development and Preliminary Validation of the McLean Collateral Information and Clinical Actionability Scale. JMIR Mental Health, 8(4), e25050. https://doi.org/10.2196%2F25050(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)

Patra, K. P., & Kumar, R. (2021). Screening For Depression and Suicide in Children. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576416/

Western Australian Clinical Training Network. (2016, August 4). Simulation scenario-adolescent risk assessment [Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNF1FIKHKEU (Accessed November 30, 2022)(Critiquing the Technic and Methods of a Mental Health Worker Comprehensive Essay)