Respond to the post bellow  by comparing your assessment tool to theirs. 

NOTE: my assessment tool: The patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9

                                    Main Post

According  to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1995),  children and adolescents are evaluated due to psychiatric disorders that  impair emotional, cognitive, physical, and/or behavioral functioning.  The child or adolescent is evaluated in the context of the family,  school, community, and culture. The purpose and aims of the clinical  diagnostic assessment are to determine whether psychopathology is  present and, if so, to establish a differential diagnosis and tentative  diagnostic formulation, to develop a treatment recommendation and plan,  or to communicate the above findings in an appropriate fashion to the  parents and child. In addition, the aims of the assessment process are  to identify the stated reasons and factors leading to the referral, to  assess the nature and severity of the child’s behavioral difficulties,  functional impairments, subjective distress, and to identify individual,  family, or environmental factors that may potentially account for,  influence, or ameliorate these difficulties. When assessing children,  parents’ interviews and school functioning reports are necessary.

The  assessment tool I will discuss in this post is the Screen for Child  Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Per the University of  Pittsburg (2019), SCARED is a child and parent self-report instrument  used to screen for childhood anxiety disorders including general anxiety  disorder, separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social  phobia. In addition, it assesses symptoms related to school phobia. The  SCARED consists of 41 items and 5 factors that parallel the DSM-IV  classification of anxiety disorders. The child and parent versions of  the SCARED have moderate parent-child agreement and good internal  consistency, test-retest reliability, and discriminant validity, and it  is sensitive to treatment response

Target population: Children ages 8-18 years

Intended users: Clinicians and Psychiatrists

Time to Administer: 10 minutes

Completed by: Children and Parents

How to Use SCARED:  SCARED is a questionnaire with scales that describes how people feel.  Clients read each phrase and decide if it is “Not True or Hardly Ever  True” or “Somewhat True or Sometimes True” or “Very True or Often True”.  Then, for each sentence, they fill in one circle that corresponds to  the response that seems to describe them for the last 3 months. After  each phrase and circles, there are abbreviations of the various  disorders. Therefore,

a total score of >25 may indicate the presence of an Anxiety Disorder.  Scores higher than 40 are more specific.

A score of 7 for items 1, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19, 22, 24, 27, 30, 34, 38 may indicate Panic Disorder or Significant Somatic Symptoms (PN).  

A score of 9 for items 5, 7, 14, 21, 23, 28, 33, 35, 37 may indicate Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GD).  

 A score of 5 for items 4, 8, 13, 16, 20, 25, 29, 31 may indicate Separation Anxiety Disorder (SP).  

A score of 8 for items 3, 10, 26, 32, 39, 40, 41 may indicate Social Anxiety Disorder (SC) 

A score of 3 for items 2, 11, 17, 36 may indicate Significant School Avoidance (SN)

(see the attached document or link, it’s the SCARED assessment and how the score is calculated: source http://www.shared-care.ca/files/SCARED_Child_Updated_June_2015 )

Psychometric Properties:  There are accumulating studies that have shown the SCARED to have good  psychometric properties for children and adolescents from various  cultures, so SCARED can be utilized in various countries as a  cross-cultural screening instrument for DSM-V anxiety disorders. The  psychometric properties of the SCARED are strong because females scored  significantly higher than males, and that age had a moderating effect on  male and female score differences. Studies have demonstrated that girls  run a higher risk of developing anxiety disorders than boys. The  moderating effect of age on anxiety symptoms, particularly generalized  anxiety disorder symptoms increases for older girls that may highlight  the importance of early interventions for them to help reduce the risk  for later developmental maladaptation (Crocetti et al., 2011)

Diagnosis for a Client Receiving Psychotherapy: Possible diagnoses for these clients under Anxiety Disorders are Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia (fear  of places and situations that might cause panic, helplessness, or  embarrassment), Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder  (formerly Social Phobia), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (American  Psychiatric Association, 2017).

Legal and Ethical Implications of Counseling Children: The four  ethical/ legal issues that arise when counseling children are counselor  competence, informed consent, confidentiality, and mandatory reporting  of child abuse. Counselor Competence-  that is knowledge and skills of the counselor (e.g. use of play  therapy), knowledge of mental disorders, understanding human  development, understanding family structure, culture/ diversity, and a  more talked about topic (transgender). Informed Consent-  It is formal permission that allows treatment. The counselor and client  fall under legal jurisdiction of contract law. Minors can only enter a  contract by parental / guardian consent, involuntary at parent’s  insistence, or ordered by juvenile court. Through informed consents,  clients are given voluntary knowledge of treatment, must understand  consequences of treatment, and if not obtained, counselors are held  responsible, and sued for battery, failure to gain consent, & child  enticement. Confidentiality  must be maintained so it will not cause lack of trust and  communication, child not seeking treatment, or early termination of  psychotherapy. Mandatory Reporting:  mental health professionals must report in all States. It’s the duty of  health care providers to report and failure to report breaches legal  and ethical standards (Garnsey, n.d.)

References

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1995). 

            Practice Parameters for the Psychiatric Assessment of Children and Adolescents.

Retrieved March 2, 2020, from 

https://www.aacap.org/App_Themes/AACAP/docs/practice_parameters/psychiatric_asse

American Psychiatric Association (2013). 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. 

Retrieved March 2, 2020, from 

https://dsm-psychiatryonline-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/doi/book/10.1176/appi.books.97

American Psychiatric Association (2017). What Are Anxiety Disorders?

            Retrieved March 3, 2020, from

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/anxiety-disorders/what-are-anxiety-disorder

Crocetti, E., Meeus, W. H. J., Raaijmakers, Q. A. W., William, W. H. (2011). 

            A meta-analysis of the cross-cultural psychometric properties of the Screen for Child

Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Retrieved March 3, 2020, from

https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=de03210f-a792-44d7-bb

Garnsey, E. (n.d.). Legal and Ethical Issues When Counseling Children. 

            Retrieved March 3, 2020, from

https://eportfolio.pace.edu/artefact/file/download.php?file=112508&view=76785

Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED)- (2012). 

CHILD Version—Page 1 of 2 (to be filled out by the CHILD)

            Retrieved March 3, 2019, from 

http://www.shared-care.ca/files/SCARED_Child_Updated_June_2015

University of Pittsburg (2019). Instruments- Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional

            Disorders (SCARED). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from 

https://www.pediatricbipolar.pitt.edu/resources/instruments

SCARED_Child_Updated_June_2015