My Personal Goals and Success Plan

With visualizing overall goals, I have indicated as a 2 because I am still learning in what goals I want to accomplish in the program and towards the future. This is an intermediate goal because I struggle in visualizing overall goals. Another 2 I have is reading and analyzing complex text. This would be an intermediate goal because in this field I know that we as future DMFT’s we are constantly reading and analyzing texts. Formulating actionable goals is another 2, because I feel that I struggle with this because my goals are constantly changing and with constant changes, it is hard to form these goals. This is an intermediate goal because I feel that this goal is a long-term goal, and it will require me to accomplish this goal as I continue my education. Finally, self-evaluate skills and progress is a two and intermediate goals because I am constantly growing in my education and in this field, I am slowly evaluating my personal goals and progress.

I have many 3’s: understanding how I can reach my goals by attending Northcentral University, understanding and applying the academic integrity policy, applying APA citation, performing an online library search, and managing time. These are all threes because I feel that I have mastered these goals because I understand by attending Northcentral that my goals are very accomplishable, understanding the academic policy is important in learning and for future references. For performing an online library search, I feel like I mastered this because I know where the databases are now, and I understand how to use it efficiently now. In managing time, I mastered this because I use a planner to know what days I have time to do assignments and dedicate those available times to complete those assignments without procrastinating. In managing time, my family has always influenced this because they always told me that taking my time and managing my time wisely with assignments is important, my professors and my supervisor also influence this because they have told me that to be successful in this field, I would have to manage my time wisely.

Visualizing overall goals is a 2 with intermediate goals. This skill is a 2 for me because as coming into this doctoral program, I was uncertain of my overall goal. All I know and want to do is to give back to the community and either work in a private practice, hospital setting, or in a county setting, mostly with children. For the longest time, my goal was to always help children and provide them with resources or techniques to help them with their everyday struggle.

Reaching my goals while attending Northcentral University, has been a smooth and immediate change for me, so I have indicated this goal a 3. When Argosy University shut down, I thought my dreams of becoming a doctor were destroyed, I was panicking and stressed. While looking for schools to transfer to, I was lucky enough to have come across Northcentral University’s page. I was becoming less stressed as I talked to Northcentral University more and more through transferring. Once I was a student at Northcentral University, I felt that my goals were in my reach again and I was very hopeful. I like what is mentioned in the course catalog about academic integrity, “The key to academic integrity originates in the writer’s choices on how to divide their voice from the voices of others.”

Applying APA citations, an indication of 3, because it was simple to me since I came across APA in my undergraduate school. So, I was familiar with it by the time I got to graduate school. Even I have mastered this skill to the best of my ability, I still struggle with how to cite in my essays, but it is an adjustable skill that can be fixed and altered over time, but other than that I have mastered this skill without even knowing about it.

With understanding and applying the Academic Integrity Policy, I believe I have mastered this, so I gave it a 3. While still adapting to the transfer and understanding Northcentral, I read it thoroughly and started understanding what is expected of me from the university. I understand why there is an Academic Integrity Policy, many take other’s work and claim them as their own or even not connecting their work to the original work. Argosy University also had a similar policy, but again, it is simple to follow and understand.

With reading and analyzing complex texts, I chose a 2, because I still stumble with reading it thoroughly. I have a minimal experience in reading results that come from the articles, but I do not have any trouble in reading assigned reading that is required for my classes. I am still reading the materials, yet the information is not maintained properly, so I would have to go back and read the articles again, sometimes the reading assignments for my classes. This helps me by trying to understand the information to the best of my ability. Usually, rereading assignments or articles helps me because I might have read the information thoroughly so reading the second or third time around does refresh my mind and memory and to grasp the information in an understandable manner.

With performing an online library search, I would give myself a 3 since I am comfortable performing online library searches, for either class assignments or for personal purposes. I feel very comfortable in using NCU library to search information regarding my topic or anything that regards my clients as I work. With looking up information in the NCU library search engine, it gives me more education and knowledge to become a better therapist. I will admit, I do forget on how to find some articles in given search engines, but that is a part of life and it takes me a few minutes to remember how to look for information again.

As time goes, managing, it is a struggle but overtime and adapting to it, it has become an everyday thing causality to me. So, with this skill, I gave myself a 3, because I learned how to manage my time more wisely and how to use that time to dedicate towards homework. Managing time also helps me balance school and life better. This also helps me by using my planner and knowing what I must get finished. Managing time makes my life a bit easier because I hate procrastinating, also when I procrastinate, my best work is unseen and would not be my best work. With procrastinating, I forget little key points that I want to talk about initially. This skill was a self-immediate goal for me, I’ve learned it so quickly and adapted to it quickly as well.

Trying to form actionable and achievable personal goals, that was both immediate and intermediate goals with an indication of 2. This skill is both immediate and intermediate goals because I feel that I have achievable goals but also being to create them has been a struggle due to not knowing what lies ahead. Depending on the situation, I am always adjusting my goals to whatever happens. Since we are talking about goals, self-evaluating skills and progress goes hand in hand. I feel that this skill is a 2 with intermediate goals because this is a manageable skill to master. But, I can see myself make progress but when I evaluate myself, I underestimate myself. But as I continue, I have seen the growth between from the first day of class to now, and I have noticed that I have came a long way.

All the skills in the chart template were all adaptable but also hard to manage and to keep track of. Out of the skills that were indicated, the one that really helped me and the one that I enjoyed is managing my time. I have become better at managing my time while pursuing my higher education degrees. The one skill that still is still hard for me to manage is reading and analyzing complex texts. With the professors that I had at Argosy University, all we were given was the assignments, follow the format, and turn it in. So, I was unknown if I critiqued articles correctly or did the assignment correctly, but the professors failed to give me a detailed response with my articles. I was given shorter ways to understand the articles, but I would be cheating on myself and not fully read and understand the articles thoroughly.

Accomplishing all these goals would be ideal because if I want to be successful in obtaining my doctoral endeavors, I must be successful in school work, leading up towards graduation and after graduation in the marriage and family field in providing therapy and services to clients. Not only am I reading for personal purposes, but I can also educate the client, based upon their diagnosis, and provide them with information that they did not know before about their situation. So, analyzing and reading the text can be beneficial to both the therapist and the client.

Getting Social

There were many events that were posted on the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapist (CAMFT) such as the CAMFT Annual Conference, CAMFT advocates meeting a senator in Washington DC, how Medicare needs LMFTs, a 10-day event taking place in Southern California to focus on mental health and it’s importance on how others are struggling where CAMFT is supporting those individuals, and how May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

All these events are very interesting to me because the events that I have mentioned are relating to marriage and family therapy. There was so much information on the conference, job fair, CAMFT members participating in social events around the country. I enjoyed on how the members of CAMFT was very active and cooperative with the events and social gatherings. I like all the posts that were interesting since more and more LMFTs are getting licensed and educated like myself, so it always helps with all the information that is being put out there to help with us in obtaining hours or license. Topics that were not posted were how LMFTs make a difference in the mental health world, how stats are not displayed to understand the seriousness in mental health, how treatment in early stages is effective.

Content was posted every day throughout the week, with information that was helpful either to current or future LMFTs or to the public. Having content being posted every day is very helpful because it gives me a little refresher, or I learn something new daily. It is also helpful because it can also help students with research such as helping with research proposals or dissertation ideas. I loved seeing that because CAMFT was having an annual conference where guest speakers came and provided information in their population or on the research that they did and presented it at the conference. I would have taken so much information from all the guest speakers and try to adapt them into my own sessions or research. It would have been nice to attend the conference as well.

The level of engagement between the organization and followers is low. Since the organization posts events or little memos daily, the followers do not seem to reply to many posts. When looking at the posts of the organization, I realized that the organization does not reply to posts. It is rare that the organization replies from what I have seen. Even though they post daily, there are minimal responses back to followers. Also, when the followers respond to the post, they tag someone in their replied post. The posts were more informational or educational purposes. I would show that the organization fails to reply to followers in posts due to the lack of responding.

As far as ethics goes, I do not see the organization’s ethical standards or expectations on their Facebook page. First, CAMFT should have their ethical standards and expectations posted on their Facebook and social media platforms. Another indicator would be to have those standards and expectations in a visible place. An ethical standard that I would advise CAMFT to put up is confidentiality and seeing that it is a big consideration in LMFT.

Confidentiality would be a factor because the therapist would want the client to feel safe and will be able to trust the therapist with the reason on why they are seeking therapy. According to Bonnie R. Benitez (2004), “Generally, therapists are prohibited from disclosing confidential communications to any third party, unless mandated or permitted by law to do so.” As LMFTs, we are legally required to keep confidentiality, if not maintained the MFT can be held accountable in civil liability or criminal action. Bonnie R. Benitez (2004) also states that “ Marriage and family therapists do not disclose patient confidences, including the names or identities of their patients, to anyone except a) as mandated by law b) as permitted by law c) when the marriage and family therapist is a defendant in a civil, criminal or disciplinary action arising from the therapy (in which case patient confidences may only be disclosed in the course of that action), or d) if there is an authorization previously obtained in writing, and then such information may only be revealed in accordance with the terms of the authorization.” Once the client’s file is complete; the file is stored in a filing cabinet and locked when business hours are closed for the day. Keeping the files in a filing cabinet, locked, protects the client and their confidentiality.

Another ethical standard and expectation is to be responsible to the clients. It is the therapist’s job to encourage clients to fill and educate them about the rules of therapy, such as, any child or elder abuse, adult abuse, or even becoming a danger to themselves or others. This standard reminds the therapist that we have a duty to protect our clients and keep them safe from harm. Being a therapist to the client, shows that you are responsible to care and protect clients both in and out of session. “Duty to Protect” is what is known in the Marriage and Family Therapy field because you are giving a duty to protect clients.

Third, would be to be non-discriminatory towards any race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, marital status, or nationality. As LMFTs, we are a non-judgmental field that helps all ethnicities that need services. There would be no dual relationships between the client and therapist. There would be no sexual conduct between the therapist and client as the client comes to seek therapy. Fees would be an appropriate indicator to have on the site depending on the therapist. The therapist could use the client’s insurance, or the client can pay cash to pay for services. Depending on the therapist, for me, I expect the clients to understand their appointment time and missing their appointment time would hold the client responsible for paying for those fees or reschedule/cancel twenty-four hours ahead.

There are many ethical standards and expectations that marriage and family therapists that the organization should consider, more towards the one that I have mentioned above. There are more to consider, of course, but the basic were mentioned already. Another ethical consideration and expectation would be for LMFTs to not abandon clients when the clients need services. It would be unethical to abandon, neglect, and/or leaving the client unattended while being away. So, providing the clients with assistance as much as possible would be more ethical.

Based upon the posts and pictures, I saw how the organization was diverse and how culturally competent, they were. From the pictures, the message that I got was that we may be different but, in the end, we are all the same. From viewing the pictures of the conference, there were a widespread of different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities that attended the annual conference. I, however, did not see an explicit statement that was defined at the conference or on the CAMFT Facebook page.

One improvement that can benefit the MFT field is to better diagnose the client when they come in for an initial appointment. As sessions go on, continuing education and trainings will help the MFT in having a better understanding of the subject or regarding the subject or have it to refresh what is happening. To read and educate yourself more about the different cultures that live either in California or in the United States. To have better training programs before entering the MFT field, have an overall grasp on what to expect, with the types of clients, know all the different types of diagnoses that the client could be experiencing or having trouble addressing.

Making a Connection

I feel that personal goals that were mentioned at the beginning would help me pursue my doctoral education by: being a better student and get the acquired knowledge I need, to be more adaptable and manageable with time and assignments, to know how to write and analyze journals and papers to help me better prepare myself for the doctoral program in an applied marriage and family therapy program. Visualizing overall goals and self-evaluating skills would be easier overtime while pursuing a doctoral degree because I am also trying to acquire my hours to be a LMFT, so constantly visualizing on my overall goals and self-evaluating my skills continue to grow and develop as I continue with my degree.

With the goals that I have as intermediate: visualizing overall goals, read and analyze complex texts, formulating actionable goals, and self-evaluating skills and progress; I feel that I have much more to learn about these as I am continuing to go through my doctoral degree education. I am familiar with these skills because I was adapting to them in my masters and beginning doctoral degree at Argosy University. I was still getting used to knowing these skills as I was growing my education. With my immediate goals: understanding how my goals can be achieved at Northcentral University, understanding the academic integrity policy at Northcentral, applying APA citations, performing an online search, and managing my time will always help me towards my doctoral degree and earning it. I have learned and mastered these skills while in the beginning phases of my master’s degree such as: APA citations, performing an online library search, and managing my time. When transferring to Northcentral University, I had a better understanding on how to achieve my goals and understanding their academic integrity policy, which was straightforward and understandable.

All these skills are helpful to helping me be successful in my doctoral degree because these are all the skills that are needed to succeed and to become successful. I knew that managing time in any doctoral program is essential and a strong key point, so I have been adjusting to that technique since the beginning of this program and even before in my master’s degree program: masters of the arts counseling psychology at Argosy University. I was always writing in my planner on when assignments are due, important class dates and when class was occurring, but most importantly when I was seeing clients. My planner helped me manage my time a lot throughout graduate school and balancing time with loved ones, but as I got more into school, I’ve had to sacrifice time with family and friends to accomplish and complete assignments for my classes. And now, I have to really manage my time since I am working in a private practice so now, it has become more difficult to manage being an online student and going to work related to my masters and doctoral degree.

References

1. Benitez, B.R. (2004). Confidentiality and its Exceptions (Including the US Patriot Act). The Therapist, 1-7. Retrieved from https://www.camft.org/images/PDFs/AttorneyArticles/Bonnie/Confidentiality_and_its_Exception.pdf
2. “Northcentral University. (2018, Dec). ‘2018 Catalog.’ Retrieved from http://ncu.catalog.acalog.com/content.php?catoid=23&navoid=5014”