Assessment

For class this week, the reading was about assessments. This reading corresponded well with my internship, as I had read it just in time to apply it while I sat in on my first intake interview. While an intake interview is not at all the same as a counseling session, assessment still applies. At an intake interview for foster care, the agency meets with the child for the first time and asks them about their background, concerns, and expectations/hopes/fears in relation to the foster care system. The 3 primary issues assessed in all situations, as outlined in the readings, are: 1) primary problems and concerns, 2) legal mandates, 3) health/safety concerns that may require attention. The intake interview I shadowed dealt with a 16 year old girls who was entering foster care for the first time. I will go through the 3 primary issues of assessment as it pertains to this case:

1) PRIMARY CONCERNS- When discussing her concerns, the client explained that she was scared and that she didn't know what to expect from a foster placement. We delved further into these concerns, and by doing so we discovered that she had been interviewed in the past by potential foster parents who decided not to accept her as a placement. She was scared of this happening again. It made her feel unwanted and that these particular people were "lying to [her] face" and giving her false hope. This is a huge issue in foster care, as many times the biological parents are unreliable and make the child feel unwanted by giving them up or not caring for them properly. Foster care is supposed to relieve these types of feelings, however, in this particular case it did the opposite and added to them. This was the child's primary concern as assessed by the intake interview.

2) LEGAL MANDATES- All children referred to Phillips Programs (my internship agency) are referred by the Department of Social Services. All clients in my agency are sent by the decision of the court. Children are taken away from their parents by the courts because of abuse, neglect, unfit living conditions, improper example, behavioral issues, mental health, and sexual abuse, among other reasons. In foster care, many times the court will have terminated the biological parental rights. Other times the goal is to eventually return the child to the biological parents after meeting certain goals that deem it appropriate to do so. The latter was the case for this particular 16 year old girl from the intake interview. She is to be reunited with her parents in the future, and was referred to foster care for the time being by the court.

3) HEALTH/SAFETY- Part of the intake interview covered issues of past self-harming behaviors, as well as violent and socially dangerous behaviors. This information came from reports from the child's social worker, group home case manager, and therapist, who were also in attendance at the interview. The client was also asked about it. She did not report any suicidal tendencies or violent behaviors. She explained that in the past, she did not know how to handle her feelings of anger properly, but living in a group home has helped her to channel her rage effectively without harming herself or others. The client's case manager confirmed these reports. From this information, it was decided that this 16 year old girl had no health or safety issues that will require special attention from our agency or from her future foster placements.