Grief Counseling Axia College of University of Phoenix Grief is defined as a type of emotional or mental suffering from a loss, sorrow, or regret (Dictionary. com, LLC, 2010). Grief affects people of all ages, races, and sexes around the world. Approximately, 36% of the world’s population does or has suffered from grief and only a mere 10% of these people will seek out help (Theravive, 2009). Once a person is suffering from grief it is important to receive treatment. All too often, people ignore grief resulting in deep depression, substance abuse, and other disorders (Theravive, 2009).
Grief counseling is very common and can be very helpful to a person in need of assistance. Grief counseling provides the support, understanding, and encouragement to understand, accept, and deal with the feelings of grief caused by unexpected losses, sorrows, or regrets. The organization I am going to create will be a non-profit counseling center. This counseling center will be focusing on grief diagnosis and treatment. This treatment center will offer its services to both children and adults. It will offer out-patient counseling sessions as well as inpatient treatment referrals.
Qualifying patients will be referred via their family doctors or the employee assistance program (EAP). They will be offered two to three counseling sessions at no cost to them. The first session will be an introductory session. At this session the counselor will talk to the patient and receive all information important to the treatment of the issues causing the patient’s grief. After all the information is gathered the counselor will make an estimate of the amount of time the person will need to be in treatment.
At the second session the counselor will discuss with the client the best treatment plan suited to their needs. Once the clients have been evaluated a treatment program must be put into place. For those suffering from severe grief inpatient services may be required. If this is the case, the counselor will meet with the client and discuss inpatient treatment. Clients that are admitted to inpatient therapy will willingly enter the program and may sign themselves out at anytime. The impatient program would require the patient to stay a minimum of one week to attend intensive therapy sessions.
After their inpatient stay it will be recommended that the patient continue therapy once weekly in the outpatient program. The outpatient program will be for clients that need counseling once weekly or even once monthly depending on their mental health state. The clients will attend regular sessions with the same therapist having the same therapist allows for a comfort level to develop as well as trust between the client and the therapist. At these sessions the therapist will work with the client to alleviate the symptoms of grief.
This is important because for some people it is easier to express how they are feeling to a complete stranger and show their emotions rather than to somebody who knows them very well. The grief counseling center will also offer group therapy sessions to those who find comfort in sharing experiences with those who are going through the same feelings. These therapy sessions will be help twice weekly in the evenings for two hours. The group therapy session will be monitored by a grief counselor.
Group therapy can be extremely helpful to certain individuals because it opens the door of awareness meaning that they are given the ability to see first-hand that are people are currently going through the same type of situation as they are or have previously been through something similar and can ask questions about their coping methods and how to progress forward with life after the loss. The organization’s mission statement will be; creating better futures in the lives of those suffering from grief by giving them the support, understanding, and treatment needed to regain happiness in their lives.
The mission statement is created in an organization to provide to the workers, clients, and community the overall goal of the organization. It is meant to state in the clearest way possible what everyone job is when serving the clientele. It keeps the employee on tract and motivated to do their job as best as possible. This is important when an ethical issue arises. The mission statement will help guide a person to making an ethical decision based on the organizations goals and philosophies. The organizations values are to reflect the mission statement as closely as possible.
They describe the core qualities of the organization as well as the actions and behaviors towards clients, employees, partners, community members, etc. The values that my organization will employ and portray are those showing the honesty, integrity, dedication, and loyalty to the clients, workers, and community. They will also portray the value of the employees to the successful treatment of the clients. The values will show the level of skill, knowledge, and expertise that the employees possess.
Honesty is an important value to have because if a client knows the staff and organization is truthful the success rate will greatly increase because of its creditability. Conveying a strong value of honesty to clients as well as everybody else involved with the organization provides stability and admiration to the organization and the employees, showing a client who has severe trust issues that he or she can trust the staff who in the beginning is complete strangers that he or she will be able to build their trust issues with other people and move forward with their lives.
Dedication is an important value because knowing that the people who are helping one grieve are dedicated and passionate about his or her job it will make a client faithful in the services as well as knowing that one’s emotional needs are not taken lightly or overlooked.
Loyalty is one of the most important values that any organization can have because being loyal to the clients, employees, partners and community members shows a great sense of responsibility not only to the organization itself but to everybody who is involved with the organization. A person who is grieving most times does not think “properly” and feels that they can trust nobody and stressing the strength of loyalty of the organization can provide a great sense of relief to the client who is in need of grief counseling.
It may take a lot of effort for a person to admit that they need any type of counseling and to accept that they are grieving because of a loss and others may be forced to receive grief counseling and walk into a center with a bad attitude that nobody understands their situation and that nobody can be trusted because of it and conveying the strong value of loyalty within the organization and among the employees can be a door-opener to certain people. Overall, the core values will show the quality, care, respect, integrity, knowledge, customer satisfaction, and care that are encompassed by the organization.
The values are important to the grief counseling center as it provides the bond of trust between the counselor, client, and the community. It is important to be honest with the clients in order to gain their trust. Once the client gain the counselors trust, he or she will be more likely to open up to the counselor and reveal more of the feelings they have inside. This will allow for the counselor to make an accurate treatment plan and help the client be on the road to recovery. Having counselors that are qualified and skilled in the field of grief and counseling is important to any client receiving services.
A client wants to know that the person they will be revealing themselves to is educated and trained to help people discuss and work through problems. The most important value that our organization will encompass is that of honor, trust, and respect. The client will not reveal their inner most thoughts to someone they know are not trustworthy. There are HIPAA laws that protect the clients, but sometimes that is not enough to make the client comfortable. A client needs to know firsthand that the counselor will be trustworthy and protect their privacy rights as a client. Also important to an organization is the code of ethics.
The code of ethic I choose to have my employees follow in the NASW Code of Ethics. My employees would follow the code of ethics in its entirety, but there are very important key elements that I will stress to my employees to follow when offering services to clients. The top ten most important elements are as follows according to the NASW Code of Ethics (2005); 1. 01 Commitment to Clients, 1. 02 Self-Determination, 1. 03 Informed Consent, 1. 04 Competence, 1. 05 Cultural Competence and Social diversity, 1. 06 Conflicts of Interest, 1. 07 Privacy and Confidentiality, 1. 09 Sexual Relationships, 1. 11 Sexual Harassment, and 1. 2 Derogatory Language. These are all very important as it shows the dedication to helping the clients, the respect the organization will give to the clients, the privacy everyone deserves, and the ability to help choose and create their own treatment plan. By following these important parts of the code of ethics it will help guide the employees in reaching the mission of the grief counseling program. As the organizations leader I would choose the leadership style of transformational. I would want to include all the staff and counselors in the decisions that affect the operation of the grief counseling facility.
I would hold monthly staff meetings to discuss any and all ideas, complaints, or comments relating to the organization. In doing this and including all staff in the development and operation of the organization it allows for more effective communication among the staff. The staff would feel more like they are a part of a team versus just s number working for a company. As a leader my moral responsibility is to keep the clients and staff happy. If situations arise I need to make the right moral and ethical decision based on the best interest of the person or persons involved.
In order to monitor the performance of the employees and to ensure that all laws and regulations are being followed I would have an outside source do annual or bi-annual audits. This would serve as protection not only for the clients, but for the employees as well. It would show that the clients that they are receiving services from a fully licensed, honest, loyal, and law abiding agency. The employees would benefit as they would know how wonderful of a job they are doing and that they are following all laws and regulations as required by the state.
Grief counseling is a specific form of therapy that focuses on people that have suffered a loss of some type. Grief counseling can take place as inpatient, outpatient, one-on-one, or group therapy situations. There are a lot of feeling a person suffering from grief may exhibit. Some of these feelings anger, sadness, guilt, regret, confusion, loneliness, tiredness, inability to sleep, etc. (Pledge, n. d. ). Grief counseling is there to help people overcome all these feelings, accept the loss of a loved one, and continue on with their lives.
Suffering from grief myself, I firsthand experienced the importance of counseling and treatment to overcome grief. Grief is different for everyone. For some grief may only last a few days or few weeks. However, for others grief may last months or even years. I have been struggling with grief for eleven months. Counseling has made a world of difference to me as well as having a positive attitude, trusting other people to help me and realize that they can relate to how I am feeling and allowing myself to remain open-minded.
If a client has somebody to relate to about their current situation it can make a person feel that they are not alone and that if the person they are talking to has been able to move on with their life that they also have the ability to do the same thing for themselves. Allowing a client to regain the ability of determination, hope, self-esteem as well as gain the ability to view and set goals for themselves are all ways to help a person recover. Everyone deserves the chance at a brighter, happier future without grief and regret. Grief counseling can start people on the road to recovery and regaining their lives back.
References Dictionary. com, LLC. (2010). Grief. Retrieved from http://dictionary. reference. com/browse/grief Theravive. (2009). Overcoming Loss-Grief Counseling. Retrieved from http://www. theravive. com/services/grief-and-loss. htm Pledge, D. (n. d). Grief counseling. The Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, 1461-463. Retrieved from Gale: Gale Virtual Reference Library (PowerSearch) database. (2005). Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 11(3), 395-422. doi:10. 1300/J146v011n03•06.
