TPC-Journal-V4-Issue2

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 2 154 Suggested Assessments to Include The outlined assessments are suggested for use in evaluating eligibility of participants, measuring outcomes, and as informative tools for participants to use in sessions: Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) . The CTI (Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996) is a measure of negative or dysfunctional career thoughts that interfere with career decision making. It is a 48-item self-report inventory that uses a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0= strongly disagree to 3= strongly agree . This inventory includes items such as “I’m so confused, I’ll never be able to choose a field of study or occupation,” and “I’m afraid that if I try out my chosen occupation I won’t be successful.” The CTI has three subscales— decision-making confusion, commitment anxiety, and external conflict—which are used to measure negative career thoughts. Career Planning Confidence Scale (CPCS) . The CPCS (McAuliffe et al., 2006) is a 39-item measure of career planning confidence. It uses a 5-point Likert Scale ranging from 1= no confidence to 5= completely confi- dent with items such as “ready to invest time and energy necessary to make a career decision” and confidence in “finding general career information.” The CPCS has six subscales: readiness to make a career decision, self-as- sessment confidence, generating options, information-seeking confidence, deciding confidence, and confidence in implementing one’s decision. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) . The DASS (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) is a 42-item self-report measure of depression, anxiety and stress. It consists of three subscales using a 4-point Likert scale that ranges from 0= did not apply to me at all to 3= applied to me very much, or most of the time . Scales are measured using items such as “I couldn’t seem to experience any positive feeling at all” and “I felt sad and depressed,” and the three subscales are depression, anxiety and stress. Self-Directed Search (SDS) . The SDS (Holland, Fritzsche, & Powell, 1994) is an interest inventory based on Holland’s RIASEC theory, which yields a three-letter code to classify individual interests. The assessment re- quests that test takers rate their preferences or perceptions of tasks, capabilities, occupations and self-estimates. Items on the SDS require yes or no responses in each RIASEC area and scale. Users can enter codes yielded from this assessment on the O*NET website, which will generate occupational options in line with their codes and information regarding individual occupations. The recently developed fifth edition of this measure added to the resources available for veterans with the development of a Military Occupations Finder. This resource al- lows veterans and active-duty military to link military occupation titles with civilian titles that can aid in trans- ferring skills and experiences to civilian employment. All measures except for the SDS are recommended to be administered at completion of the group protocol to assess treatment outcomes. After initial screening and assessment, all participants will engage in a pregroup meeting as well as six sessions outlined according to recommendations by Sampson et al. (2004) regarding ap- plications of CIP theory to career counseling (refer to Appendix for session outlines). Special Considerations There are several considerations to be made for use of a CIP group with the intended population. If used with groups of veterans as discussed, individuals will likely maintain interactions in other areas of their lives, which constitute increased contact outside group settings. Because of the nature of veteran groups and rehabili- tation centers such as VA BRC, group members are also likely to engage in other treatment and social settings together, and thus, group leaders should carefully discuss confidentiality with all group members. Likewise, group treatment as part of a holistic approach by a treatment team is often the case at veteran treatment centers,