My Client

My Client, a 24 years old female, presented with an overwhelmed feeling about managing her time. Her name is Elle and she is Korean American immigrant. She was born in South Korea. She came to Atlanta, Georgia by herself when she was 16 years old. She used to live with her mother, stepfather, half sister and brother until she came. One of the reasons she came to the U.S is that her mother decided to transfer her custody to her daughter’s biological father who left his own family 16years ago. She was excited to leave for America, the land of opportunity, and she also was sad to separate her mother from Korea at the same time.

It was difficult for her to adopt new family because it was her first time to meet her biological father, step mother, and step sister. At that time, she focused on obtaining her High School diploma although her relationship with her family was conflicted. She decided to leave her family when she was 18 after graduating High School. She moved to New York herself and started to live alone. She was completely independent from her family. She worked two days a week, attended college as fulltime student, and deeply engaged with church as a Christian. From that moment, time management skills became the most concerning factor to maintain her life as a worker, fulltime student, and member of her church. Overall, she satisfied what she had done for the last 4years; obtained bachelor degree, married, worked and depended on religious life. But still she struggled with time management which often frustrated her.

Elle is complaining that she does not have enough time to study and she can’t focus even though she has time. She is more anxious when the due date of her project is coming. To explore the problem, I want to define her meaning of the time. Therefore I was asked few questions related to her family (cultural) time, functional time, and real time. The first question I asked her was how her parent managed their time. It is important question because parents’ behaviors significantly affect their child’s behavior. She answered that her family lived in small Island of Korea. Her stepfather was a fisher man and her mother was a house wife who did not have any anxiety about time. She meant that they worked hard but time is not a matter in their lifestyles. It was a totally different situation that she is experiencing now. Furthermore, her parents’ parenting style was more like neglect that never tells her what to do or have to do. It sounds to me that she did not have chance to learn to do things on time.

The second question was what is she doing on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. It will define how she is functioning based on the time. On weekly, she worked three full days as an esthetician to maintain her financial issue. She also attended graduate school two days and went to church two days. And she has two days to do her studies, housework, and chance to keep other appointment. Most of time she feels pressure to take too many roles as wife, student, worker, and member of her church. These complicated life styles make it hard to focus on her studies even though she has time to study. This lack of study time produces another stresses on other daily activities. She desperately wants to improve the behavior of study because she her priority is to graduate her master program by next year.

My Goal for this client is improve behavior, the amount of time she spends on study and decrease the feeling of anxiety. I assumed that level of anxiety will reduce if she controls her time.I will use indirect observation, self anchoring scale and Clinical Anxiety scale from the WALMYR Assessment Scale (WAS) as well. To observe her study behavior, I asked her to keep a record of the time she spends on studying and bring it to the next session. I made the above chart to keep a record for myself. It counts the frequency and duration which include self anchoring scale as well. The textbook inspired me to make chart. The dates count frequency that how many times she studies during a week. The length of study time will account duration of how long she studies during a week. And the last part is amount of anxiety she feels about her upcoming project which indicates self-anchoring scale. I used 5 scale points that 1is lowest level of the problem and 5 is highest level of problem.

Encouraging her to involve my goal, I restated her concern about time and explained this data gives idea of how she spends time on studies. Fortunately, my client has positive attitude about my idea of keeping a record because she understands that this record will show her exact amount of time she spends on study a every week. The client and I agreed to have one hour session at one o’clock every Tuesday. I am going to use Clinical Anxiety Scale (CAS) which is one of the WALMYR Assessment Scales (WAS) during session. This will help to define the relationship between time management skills and anxiety scale.
Since I don’t have my field placement for this semester, Dr. Fast and my classmates will be my instructor for my assessment.

References
Bloom, M., Fischer, J., & Orme, J. G. (2006). Behavior observation. In Evaluating practice: Guidelines for the accountable professional (chap.5). MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Genogram. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2009, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Web site: http://en.wikipeial.org

My Agency

Since last semester, I have my internship at the KCS (The Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York) Corona Senior Center and the Flushing Senior Center. My agency provides various services including communal lunch, home delivered meal program, case assistance, education/recreation and information/referral. The main target population of KCS Corona Senior Center has been Korean American seniors who are 60 years old and over.

To understand Korean immigrants in United States, I review the Strangers to these shores : race and ethnic relations in the United States and the book provides the basic understanding of Korean American history and strengths. The purpose of this book is to reduce bias which is easily lead conflict. According to Parrillo, there are three major events that brought Korean immigrants United States historically. The first large group of Korean immigrant to the United States came between 1903 and 1905 by The Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association. The main reason was they need laborers to replace the Chinese who were excluded by the 1882 legislation so they recruited 7,226 Koreans. Later on the Refugee Relief Act in 1953 was increase the population. The last event to increase Korean population in United States was the liberalized immigration law of 1954 that opened the doors to Asian immigrants and allowed relatives to join family members already in the United States. The book describes the history of Korean immigrants. As a Korean immigrant with an internship in Korean Community Service, this information is vital to know. It reminded me that international policy, such as open door policy to other nation, takes important role in immigrant society until now.

According to Parrillo, there are three unique characteristics of Korean Immigrants: religions, occupation and education. To understand Korean population, religions is key component. Almost 70 percent of the Korean American population identifies itself as Christian which is significantly higher percentage than the 30 percent Christian population in Korea. In addition the churches in immigrant society contribute many role as providing religious and ethic fellowship, a personal community, and a family atmosphere within an alien and urban environment. In Korean American occupation, 40 percent of the males operate their won businesses. It is the highest of all ethic or racial group, including whites compare to the 12 percent of self employing rate national wide. At the last Korean are more highly educated than most other nonwhite group. However their income is lower than native born Americans and their earnings are similar to those of other Asian American Group even though they have number of college graduates.

To focus on the Korean American senior population, most in the agency are first generation immigrants who have had language barriers as well as conflicts with acculturation. There are two different groups of seniors who have come to the USA. The first came to USA before their old age. They have been strong willing to raise their children in a better environment. They do not hesitate to provide a selfless devotion toward the well-being of their children. Their mere interest is seeking a better life for themselves in old age. It is based on their sense of strong kinship and their value of family. The second group of people came to USA in their old age. The role of women in the Korean American community has been changed significantly after arriving to the USA. The traditional roles of women in Korea are housewives but women who initially immigrated to the U.S. had to work. In the USA, a majority of married Korean women participate in an intensive business run by family members, which typically demand long hours. At the same time, they desperately need someone to help with child care and housework. That is why seniors usually are invited the United States to take care of the children and help house work in the family.

Despite the difficult situations, the Korean American seniors often remain in the USA even though sons and daughter are living in Korea. They enjoy the welfare benefits of the U.S. government. In Korean tradition, adult children of seniors have to provide direct for assistance their needs. Adult children help them in dealing with their physical, social and economic needs. Yet, immigrant Korean families may have difficulties in providing what aged parents need. That is why they stay in the USA during their old age. They also have to integrate the new culture and traditional roles. For example, of filial piety where seniors may expect their children to assume full responsibilities for parental needs. Yet, changes are taking place in all levels of society involving family characteristics and the roles of parents and children.

The language barrier is the most challenge for Korean-American seniors. It was interesting to work with senior member especially in communication. Without their file which recorded their personal information and previous issues and follow-up, it was hard to have information what we need. The seniors always need basic assistance, because of their language barrier. To assist senior member, I need to know all the social service that agency provide. For example, senior members bring all kinds of their letters which are comprised of medical bill, social security, and so on from home and then ask for assistance. Sometimes they understand how to respond to them but are afraid to do it their own. I like to assist them through the field of social work.

One senior member’s letter required action to be changed to the Medicare Part D plan. I needed to log on to the Medicare website and confirm that they are currently enrolled in order to find out whether the letter is a commercial one or if it is actually important. In most cases they do not have prior knowledge of the Medicare system and what they are enrolled under. Then I assist the client when they want to avoid calling the insurance company to change or renew their plan. Korean American seniors cannot make phone calls by themselves due to the language barrier and their lack of information. However, to provide assistance to the senior, I need to understand services that agency provide which is income support, health care, nutrition, housing, transportation, socialization, and legal services.

References

Parrillo, V. N. (2006). Strangers to these shores : race and ethnic relations in the United States(8th ed.). Boston: Pearson/‌Allyn and Bacon.