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Running head: FINAL PAPER

Final Reflection Paper: Jacob’s Story

Liz Guenther

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Assessment

To begin my assessment with Jacob, I would first begin by establishing a relationship

with him to make him feel comfortable. I would start the conversation with light-hearted topics,

because Jacob may be more fearful than an adult client. I may make conversation about school

and talk about the things that Jacob likes to do. Then, I would begin asking Jacob about some of

the presenting concerns that impact him in his day-to-day life. Some of the information that I

would like to know more about is his anxiety. I would like to learn more about how his anxiety

impacts his relationships and when Jacob finds that his anxiety is triggered. I also would like to

ask more questions about his parents’ divorce. For instance, I would be curious to see how the

divorce has impacted his anxiety and if the increase in arguing is connected to Jacob’s anxiety. I

also would like to assess more about why Jacob thinks he will always be anxious. I would ask

this information by asking Jacob open-ended questions and interspersing these more intimate

questions within easier questions to make Jacob feel less overwhelmed.

Goal Development

After the assessment, I would determine that Jacob would like to make a goal that

impacts his anxiety. In our assessment, Jacob rated his anxiety as a nine out of ten. Within the

next 3 months, Jacob will work towards decreasing his anxiety to decrease his score to a weekly

average of 4. Following the guidelines provided by “SMART” goals, this goal fits well into this

framework (Hepworth et al., 2017, p. 313). It is a very specific goal using a timeline and scale to

define the goal. It also is measurable using goal using a quantitative scale to track progress. It

also is very reasonable to have Jacob decrease his anxiety to the standard in the goal, and it is

very actionable with a series of tasks.

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Service Delivery

When addressing Jacob’s anxiety concerns, it may be useful to use a task-centered

approach to affect this goal. I would use this approach because I would be able to impact Jacob’s

anxiety with a BSW. The task-centered approach also may be more easily understandable and a

more tangible “treatment” option for Jacob. Jacob is 10 years old, and he may not have a lot of

experience with a social worker. He might feel very rewarded with this approach, and he would

enjoy seeing his progress with the different tasks. He might have mentioned in our assessment

that he hasn’t tried any strategies for his anxiety. He might not have the proper tools to address

his anxiety at such a young age, so it may be very helpful to give Jacob some tasks to impact his

goal. Because Jacob is interested in positively impacting his anxiety, we would create tasks

around Jacob’s anxiety. One task may be that I would like for Jacob to pay attention to the times

that he feels anxious before our next session, and I would like for him to write these moments

down. Another task that I would have Jacob work on is trying a deep breathing routine at the

moments that Jacob becomes anxious. Another task that I would like Jacob to do before our next

session is to think of some ideas of activities that make him feel less anxious and at peace. This

task will help us craft an appropriate self-care routine to help impact Jacob’s anxiety for future

tasks. Even though Jacob is young, it may be very impactful to establish tasks that help

encourage healthy stress management techniques. Finally, another task that may be valuable to

Jacob would be to help promote anxiety relief in school. Jacob mentioned in the assessment that

he often felt consistently anxious at school and with his friends. For this reason, I might establish

a task for me to complete before our next session. This task would relate to finding options for

Jacob at school when he feels anxious. This would be a helpful task because teachers may have
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areas in their classroom for students to go when they feel overwhelmed, such as a book area.

This task would allow me to explore the best options for my client and will help Jacob impact his

overall anxiety to accomplish his goal.

Evaluation

Evaluation would be a crucial part of the goal that I have set for Jacob. Jacob and I would

work together to create a “self-anchored scale,” with the scale ranging from one to ten

(Hepworth et al., 2017, p. 345). Depending on the criteria that Jacob gives to describe his

anxious states, we would be able to come up with some distinguishing descriptions for each part

of the scale. At one of the higher points of the scale, Jacob may share that he feels “very

anxious,” and this part of the scale may describe that his heart pounds, he can’t focus on the

present moment, and he starts to shake. Jacob then would try to use this scale daily, and we

would calculate the weekly averages to track Jacob’s progress. This would allow us to see if

Jacob is making progress towards his goal of reaching an average weekly score of 4.

Termination

In this circumstance, Jacob’s termination would be unplanned. Jacob may be feeling

many feelings due to this sudden move. I would arrange a closing session with my client and

would make sure that this would take place within the next week. In my closing session, I would

make sure to establish some closure for Jacob. I would possibly need to address Jacob’s negative

feelings and increased anxiety. We may have established a relationship, and Jacob may not want

to move to a different school. I would also summarize what Jacob has achieved and how we can

sustain these changes. I would share some areas that Jacob could grow in the future. It also

would be essential to celebrate Jacob and what he has achieved. I may send him a small gift,
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such as a bookmark. This would help to empower my client to feel proud of what they have

achieved and feel hopeful about the changes in their life.

References

Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom-Gottfried, K. (2017). Direct social

work practice: Theory and skills (10th edition). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks-Cole

Publishing Co.