PYN018-1 Practicum and Research Project 1

Unit Outline: Semester 1 2025, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Overview

This unit is the first in a suite of three units PYN018-1, PYN018-2 and PYN018-3 which represent a capstone learning experience providing you with an opportunity to apply theoretical and skill-based learning from previous counselling and supervision units in both the QUT Psychology and Counselling Clinic and industry contexts.

Placements will provide a context for the completion of a clinical project which builds upon your learning in PYN014. The reflection on supervised clinical practice will assist you to describe, critically examine and deconstruct your evolving framework for counselling practice and enhance employability upon graduation. 

The project topic will be informed by your 200 hours (160 placement hours and 40 Counselling hours) of clinical practice where you will be exposed to a wide range of client presentations and issues and learn industry relevant-digital practices, all of which will prepare you for work as a competent and independent counsellor. 

This is a designated unit which is essential to your course progression. Designated units include professional experience units, units requiring the development of particular skills, and units requiring demonstration of certain personal qualities. If you fail to achieve a satisfactory level of performance in a designated unit, you may be excluded from enrolment or will be put on academic probation. If you fail a designated unit twice within your course, you may be excluded. Supplementary assessment is not available on designated units.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Apply advanced language and interpersonal skills to facilitate counselling sessions and contribute fully to collaborative enquiry processes such as reflecting team work;
2. Analyse and reflect on the ways that involvement in the clinical experience is impacting on and contributing to your developing personal framework of practice;
3. Deconstruct and self-assess your own counselling work using multiple perspectives.

Content

Learning Approaches

In this unit your delivery of team-based counselling, and industry-based practice will be supported by an orientation to the clinic and industry placement. Embedded support for learning will be offered on a regular basis through live supervision with clinical supervisors.  Additional individual supervision can be offered upon request. A therapeutic and reflecting team will assist you to deconstruct and debrief your counselling session and practice. You will receive feedback and be offered additional resources by your supervisor and team members. A recorded and self-assessed client session will be reviewed by the Clinic Director who will offer feedback. You will have the opportunity to observe and learn from the counselling work of other team members and you will assist them as a reflecting team member and with peer support, feedback and debriefing.

Your academic supervisor will be available for consultation as you develop a proposal for your clinical project.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

Feedback in this unit is provided to you in the following ways:

• Feedback within clinic supervision processes
• Feedback from peers in clinic debriefing sessions
• Feedback from industry supervisors
• Criteria sheets and comments on summative assessment work
• Canvas postings

Assessment

Overview

This unit has two summative assessment tasks that represent practical and written components. Formative assessment will include debriefing and collaborative enquiry processes centred on your clinic counselling work. This will inform your completion of the first summative assessment - a reflective self-assessment of a counselling session. In the second summative assessment, you will write a discursive and expository essay which examines the influences and development of your personal counselling framework as well as a description of your clinical competencies in the QUT Counselling and Family Therapy Clinic -where you will be required to participate in 5 hours of weekly practice.

You must complete all items of assessment satisfactorily to achieve a passing grade in the unit. You must complete all items of assessment satisfactorily to achieve a passing grade in the unit and to proceed to PYN018-2 and PYN018-3.  A second attempt at an assessment due to a Fail will need to be negotiated with the unit coordinator.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale and S (Satisfactory) / U (Unsatisfactory)

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Self-assessment

You will be required to submit a recorded session of your client work, the reflecting team discussion, follow-up reflections with the clients, and your case notes (as an appendix). You will present your video, case notes, and reflections in a face-to-face supervision session with your allocated academic supervisor.

This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension.

The Self-Assessment consists of 4 parts:

Part 1.  Session recording

You will record a Counselling session conducted during your work in the QUT Counselling and Family Therapy Clinic. This will include the counselling session, the reflecting team discussion, and your facilitation of post-reflecting team discussion reflections with the client. You will bring this recording along with your DE-IDENTIFIED case notes for the session to your interview with your academic supervisor.

Part 2. Process Map/Theoretical Lens 

Prior to your interview, you will complete a process map, capturing the most salient parts of your counselling session taken from your recording to conceptualise your collaborative inquiry process during the interview with your academic supervisor. This will be due 24 hours before your scheduled interview.

Part 3.  Interview 

During your interview with your academic supervisor, you will deconstruct your counselling session recording, highlighting theory, skills, intentions, and relevant personal and professional learnings. Interviews are typically scheduled in Weeks 5 - 6.

Part 4.  Written summary 

You will submit a post-interview self-assessment summary highlighting significant personal and professional learnings and detailed learning goals for your ongoing therapeutic work. This will be due approximately four weeks after your scheduled interview (typically Weeks 9-10)

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Threshold Assessment:

You must complete all items of assessment to achieve a passing grade in the unit and to proceed to PYN018-2 and PYN018-3.  A second attempt at an assessment due to a Fail will need to be negotiated with the unit coordinator.

Assessment: Essay

This expository and discursive essay will outline your existing counselling skills and approach as well as the influences, principles, theories and orientations which contribute to your current personal framework of practice. You will analyse and review the impact of the clinics team-based, multiple perspectives approach to counselling on your own framework.   You will identify emerging issues, objectives and questions you have that will begin to inform your research focus in the subsequent units of your Clinical Project.

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Threshold Assessment:

You must complete all items of assessment to achieve a passing grade in the unit.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Requirements to Study

Blue Card

A blue card is required to complete this unit. A blue card confirms that you have passed a screening of your criminal history (the Working with Children Check) and have been approved to work with children and young people. For more information on the blue card and how to apply please visit the QUT website.

Resources

Resource Materials

Recommended text(s)

Carey, M., & Russell, S. (2003). Outsider-witness practices: Some answers to commonly asked questions. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 3-16. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/outsider-witness-practices-some-answers-commonly/docview/2618171841/se-2

Title of work:
Narrative therapy; the social construction of preferred realities (1996)
Section:
Reflecting (Chapter 7 - Reflecting) pp. 169--193
Author/editor of work:
Freedman, Jill.; Combs, Gene.
Name of Publisher:
Norton

Other

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview.Forum : Qualitative Social Research, 12(1) Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/autoethnography-overview/docview/870465772/se-2

Escape from Bickering session 1 and 2 - You Tube.

Jane Agee (2009) Developing qualitative research questions: a reflective process,International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22:4, 431-447, DOI: 10.1080/09518390902736512

Risk Assessment Statement

There are no out-of-the-ordinary risks associated with this unit. You are referred to the university's health and safety website 'www.hrd.qut.edu.au/healthsafety/index.jsp for further information.