Clinical Program Formulation Balog Whitney Employmentworks
Clinical Program Formulation Balog Whitney Employmentworks
Clinical Program Formulation Balog Whitney Employmentworks
Formulation
WORKTOPIA: Employment Works
def.
Identifying Information
Identifying Information
Relational authenticity
Background Information
Intake Process
Phone Screen
Intake Meeting:
o
o
o
o
Eligibility Criteria:
Currently unemployed (i.e. not working more than 20 hours/week and not collecting
unemployment insurance)
Assessments
Baseline
Cognitive
o
Social
o
Skills
Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ)
Adaptive
o
Behaviour
Demographic/History
14
Timing
Outcome Area
Participant/Parent
Demographic Information
Demographic
Participant
Pre/post
Diagnostic Confirmation
Parent
Baseline
Cognitive
Participant
Baseline
Adaptive
Parent
Pre/post
Employment Readiness
Participant
Pre/post
Employment Readiness
Pre/post
Employment Readiness
Participant
Pre/post
Employment Goals
Intermittent - Week 2, 5, 12
Employment Goals
Pre/post
ASD/ Social/Behavior
Pre/post
Participant &/Parent
Pre/post
Well-being
Participant
Pre/post
Well-Being
Participant
Pre/post
Well-Being
Participant
Satisfaction Survey
Post
Program Evaluation
Qualitative Interviews
Post
Program Evaluation
Employment Goals
Employment Readiness
Community Partners
Final Evaluation
o
Satisfaction Survey
Program Presentation
Weekly schedule
Program Presentation
Orientation
1.Finding our way: Colleagues on a path together
Theme: Knowing Myself as a Working Person
2.What are my employment strengths and interests?
3.Getting started: Working on my plan of action
4.Considering the importance of work in my life
Theme: Engaging in the Culture of Employment
5.Viewing employment from the employers perspective: What does
the boss want?
6. Identifying challenges and ways to overcome them
7. Realizing the hard work but finding a way forward
8. Minimizing stress and anxiety in the workplace: Its hard, but we
can make it!
Theme: Building My Skills for Employment
9. Networking in the workplace: Talk that counts
10. Networking in the workplace: Talk that counts (continued)
11. Thinking about what others are thinking
12. Maintaining a healthy self within the community: Working,
growing and thriving
Program Strengths
Video modelling
Temperament
Within the structured learning and community workplacement contexts, the program appears easy-going or
relaxed, engaging, supportive/welcoming, flexible,
helpful, highly active, sensitive to the needs of others.
Rearing/Formative Experiences
A Guide for New Job Seekers for Youth and Newcomers to the Workplace (2007 Government
of Alberta)
Employability Skills Toolkit for Employability Success (2000 The Conference Board of
Canada)
Getting There: A Curriculum for People Moving into Employment (1996 Colette, Woliver,
Bingham & Merrifield)
Life Skills Activities for Secondary Students with Special Needs (2009 Mannix)
Skills to Pay the Bills: Mastering Soft Skills for Workplace Success (United States Department
of Labor)
The Soft Skills Solutions Series of Booklets (2015 Cross & Lanaghen)
The Interview Skills Curriculum (2014 Morgan, Leatzow, Clark & Stiller)
Nicholas, D., Roberts, W., & Macintosh, C. (2014). Invited submission: Advancing vocational
opportunities for adults with autism spectrum disorder: Proceedings from the 1st annual
Canadian ASD vocational conference. Currents, 13(1) Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1667324743?
accountid=9838.
Rearing/Formative
Experiences
The Worktopia Project (the Project) is currently comprised of three (3) distinct program streams
designed to improve employment readiness and enhance the employment skills of individuals ages 15-29
with a diagnosis of ASD. A brief description of each Worktopia program is provided below:
SchoolWorks Canada is a school-based program that offers peer supported social, communication and
vocational skills development to youth with ASD ages 15-21 who are currently attending high school. The
program is designed to help prepare participants for the transition to adulthood and future employment.
Developmental Stage/Task
Internal/External Influences
External:
5% return to school
Employment
Financial/Time Factors
Medical/Psycholgical/Cogntiv
e Factors
Clinical Impressions
The program places much of the onus on the individual to adapt, change, and comply to the various
workplace requirements and environments; little assessment, training, or accommodation is
expected by community partners. Critical disability theory, argues that if we adopt an individualist
and essentializing conception of disability, the primary responsibility lies with(in) the person with
the disability. If, however, we understand disability as a socially constructed barrier, then . . .
responsibility and accountability shifts to the larger community (Pothier & Devlin, 2006, p. 12).
Normative measures and baselines for employment readiness and productivity assessment. Adapting
neuro-typical tests to individuals with ASD; requires that the individuals fit into checkmarks and
boxes, and yet fails to consider context specific variables (loud noises at the worksite for an
individual who has sensory processing difficulties).
The immense financial pressure and timeline expectations from external sources appears to strain
the programs most optimal development and growth; and therefore, the most ethical and just
experience for participants in the program (further messaging and perpetuation of constructed
norms for the ideal worker, which fails to consider individual, lived experience).
The programs taxing requirements from the organization hinders the growth and development of
other programs (Launch Program, which focuses on holistic transition planning through five
domains).
The program places great importance on both the variability of the Peer-Mentor relationship and
the adaptability of the program to various geographical and community contexts; however, the
program fails to identify the diverse religious, ethnic, linguistic, gender, sexuality, class, racial
factors that participants may experience. The writer has articulated the largely white,
heteronormative, and male demographic of the first cohort and thus questioned the programs
consideration of inclusive transferability to diverse contexts.
Treatment Plan
Program coordinators need to ensure that participants and their families have up-to-date listings of
local and appropriate resources and supports in their regionbeyond the program.
To help address some of the complex medical and psychological factors that influence a participants
participation in the program, the writer suggests that more formal and consistent clinical support is
provided to the participants. Thus, weekly clinical appointments throughout the 12 weeks could offer
more insight into individual needs and issues, and better provide specific support for these needs.
The writer suggests that because the program is in a very early developmental state, it is critical to
engage in continual assessment, and evaluation, and adjust intervention strategies as necessary.
The writer has emphasized to the program creators, clinicians, and facilitators that this specific
measure poses ethical implications on the participants personhood, and renders the program
trajectory as potentially harmful to those who are involved in it (further perpetuating the vectors of
normative control that have disempowered participants).
The writer has suggested to program creators that more substantial assessment, training, and
evaluation is required to support community capacity building, so as to remove the burden of capacity
building solely from the individual (even out the scales of individual and community efforts).
From a theoretical standpoint, the writer suggests that program creators not abandon the discourses
of achievement, employability, and growth but decentre them as to create space for more contextspecific experiences and outcomes (i.e. discussing more holistic reasons for attaining employment,
such as friendship and socialization).
The writer suggests that the program creators and organizational management adjust the current
timeline for expected program outcomes to allow more substantive evaluation of this critical
development period..
The writer has engaged in several conversations with supervisors regarding the programs consuming
commitment of organizational and employee support.
The program coordinators/caretakers need to further articulate the diverse racial, gender, sexuality,
religious, linguistic, and class factors that may influence participants experience in the program
differently.
Citations