This case is about a 23 years old girl, a single mother from Los Angeles California and she was diagnosed as an Addict of multiple drugs along with other behavioral problems such as theft. Cassandra has a previous history of jail and hospital admission regarding her addiction treatment. Previously she never diagnosed with any psychological problem, but this time she is having some symptoms of depression and anxiety. Having two times the history of jail and she has a negative friends circle.
Presenting Complaints
· Feeling of depression
· Feeling of anxiety
· Low mood
· Abusing alcohol
· Using Heroin
Assessment
Informal Assessment: Medical History, Physical Health history, Interpersonal and family history, Family and parenting history, educational and legal information. Along with all this information her personal appearance, communication, body language, and cross-check information by family.
Formal Assessment: Active planning for treatment would be possible through assessment, and it will begin with the offender's admission. Cassandra s needs will be identified regarding offenses such as rehabilitation need, and employment needs or educational needs, etc. rest of the assessment would be based on these factors:
BDI: to analyze the depression symptoms
BAI: to analyze the Anxiety symptoms
Treatment Plan
The case study is depicting that Cassandra has some behavioral problems and some psychological problems so according to her problem her treatment will be designed on different psychological therapies some main therapies are:
Cognitive behavior therapy: Cognitive behavior therapy is recognized as a successful psycho-social intervention, and its aim is to improve the mental health of Cassandra. Cognitive behavior therapy focuses on the cognition of client and helps to change the cognitive distortion by improving though patterns, emotional regulation because in cognitive behavior therapy different personal coping strategies are used to resolve the problems of the client (Maves & Deirdre, 2012).
Counseling: Counselling is a broad domain in which Counsellor just tell the right ways and client use its full potential to solve its problems. In this case, Counselling can help the Cassandra because she is not having a history of severe psychological problems. In this regard, correctional counseling will be more helpful because the client is having a history of behavioral issues and two time she faces prison due to her behavior. The correctional counselor will help to provide the correctional treatment moreover America has developed different new and unique ways for correctional programs. Correctional counselors directly deal with offenders and develop plans for the offenders and set goals which help offender and drug abusers to maintain their sobriety. It helps offenders to keep sober and to avoid relapse.
Re-entry Correctional Programs
Re-entry program will be used because it will help to reduce the risk and to develop internal and external strengths by developing their personal traits which will help her to make positive changes in personality. This program will help Cassandra to deal with its psychological, behavioral and emotional problems along with its drug abuse because drug abuse already causes different psychological, emotional, physical and social problems.
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation is the main focus of correctional programs. Rehabilitation is an umbrella term for different programs which also containing mental health, educational services, and substance abuse related problems for offenders and for drug addicts (Baloch & Jennings, 2017). Rehabilitation programs are suggested for the client because it will help the Cassandra to deal with their psychological problems. Low mood, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms can be managed through rehabilitation. In rehabilitation program psychologist will help Cassandra to improve its quality of life by designing sessions and other therapeutic plans and these therapeutic plans help them to manage the clients’ psychological problems and lead them toward emotional stability by improving their emotional and psychological health.
Substance Abuse Treatment
The client is having a drug abuse problem so the re-entry program will provide help to control his drug abuse problem by its substance abuse treatment service. Alcoholic anonymous and narcotics anonymous are directly linked with the re-entry program which are making this program more credible. Thus these services will help the client with the natural environment after release from jail and deal with its social environment. Twelve steps of narcotic anonymous will help to deal with denial of the Cassandra because she does not agree about her drug-abusing problems. Another positive aspect of this treatment plan is that The Steve Hoyle Intensive Substance Abuse Treatment Program is also generated by the re-entry program which can help the client to deal with its substance abuse problems.
Jobs and Skills Readiness
Jobs and skills training are required for the client firstly she is a female, and secondly, she is a single mother of 4 years baby, so this skills and job training will help her to manage her expenses. The purpose of this program for the client is that she is not employees yet so that she can go for unfair means to get money and it could be theft or robbery as well. The vocational programs of the re-entry program will help Cassandra to learn new skills to get a job. National Centre for Construction Education and Research will help to manage this operation in terms of skills learning and employment opportunities. It is because Automotive Services Excellence is offering employment for offender after training and release. Louisiana Community & Technical College System (LCTCS) will help to provide entry-level employment skills it will be more useful for the client because she is not more educated. According to her educational history, she never passed her high school education, so she needs to join entry-level vocational training.
Faith and Value-Based Development
Faith and value-based developmental programs are required for the client because it will help her to understand her responsibility (Derkzen, Wardrop, & Thompson, 2017). Moreover, Cassandra is unable to understand her social behaviour, so this type of developmental programs will help her in spiritual development. High and moderate risks regarding moral, ethics and social elements can be control through such kind of programs. For this purpose, the client will attend different classes in jail which are conducted specially for spiritual growth.
Role of Helping Process
This helping process will help the client to deal with her problems because her problems are becoming critical day by day. In her first sentence to jail she was not having the psychological problems thus this program will help her to dynamic risk factors. These factors are easy to control and can be managed by different rehabilitation, therapeutic and counseling sessions. On the other hand, static factors may difficult to control, but it could be managed through skills development, employment opportunities and by spiritual development of Cassandra. If all the factors are changed by the help of the re-entry program client will be able to manage his life successfully by maintaining her sobriety.
This re-entry program will be implemented in three phases:
Phase 1: this phase consists of the time period which Cassandra will spend in jail to get new information and to learn new skills.
Phase 2: the second phase is the transitional phase which is started from the release date of offenders. Cassandra will learn to implement her learned skills in the environment to learn to deal with her problems.
Phase 3: Staying home or community phase: this phase will analyze the learned skills and Cassandra will able to deal with daily life issues and will also able to manage her life. In this phase, Cassandra can take services from the client if required.
References
Baloch, N. A., & Jennings, W. G. (2017). Offender vocational rehabilitation services and postrelease employment: A case for inmates with disabilities. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 34(5), 67-72.
Derkzen, D., Wardrop, K., & Thompson, J. (2017). OUTCOMES OF WOMEN OFFENDER CORRECTIONAL PROGRAMS’. Advancing Corrections Journal, 54(2), 40-82.
Maves, B., & Deirdre, O. (2012). Making a case for Specialized Caseloads Among Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors Working With Ex-Offenders: A Pilot Study. Rehabilitation Research, Policy, and Education, 31(2), 34-38.