Mike and Tanya Baker have a 15-year-old son, Mike Jr. Up until the beginning of his school year, Mike Jr. was a responsible and pleasant teen. However, Mike Jr. started hanging out with a group of teens at school that are known to get into trouble and have confrontations with the police. One Saturday evening, Mike Jr.’s friends held a party at a local park closed for construction. The police arrived and the boys ran. However, Mike Jr. was caught and, in his panic, kicked the officer who caught him. He was arrested and placed in the Hart City Juvenile Detention Center. His parents are understandably upset. They hired an attorney and are willing to do whatever the court decides to get their son released. They argued that since this is Mike Jr.’s first offense, he should receive leniency. The judge in the case wants to make sure that Mike Jr.’s recent behavior is not part of a larger internal or external issue. He has ordered an advanced human services professional practitioner to conduct an assessment of Mike Jr. and his home life to determine the emotional and physical challenges that affected his recent behavior.

TO PREPARE

• Review your Course Announcements for possible information related to this week’s Discussion.
• Review the Learning Resources on planning change. Consider how to generate key questions to help service users move from commitment to planning.
• Go to the Hart City virtual community using the link that is provided in the Learning Resources. Once you are in the community, review the case study you were assigned.
• Create three questions you would ask the service user in the case study to help them move from commitment to planning. Be sure to use questions that are different than those on the Key Questions handout.
• Reflect on the service user’s presenting challenge. Identify three resources from within your own community that you would refer to the service user.

BY DAY 4

Identify the Hart City case study you were assigned in the subject line of your post.

Post three key questions (not found in the “Key Question” section of Chapter 19 in the course text) that you would ask to help move your Hart City service user from commitment to planning. Then, identify three resources from within your own community that you would refer to the service user, and explain why.

BY DAY 6

Respond to two of your colleagues who selected a different case study than you did. Respectfully agree or disagree with the questions they asked and the resources they chose.

Learning Resources

HART CITY CASE STUDIES

Walden University. (2020). Hart City [Interactive media]. Walden University Blackboard. 

PLANNING CHANGE

Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.

• Chapter 19, “From Evoking to Planning” (pp. 257–267)
• Chapter 20, “Developing a Change Plan” (pp. 268–284)
• Chapter 21, “Strengthening Commitment” (pp. 285–292)
• Chapter 22, “Supporting Change” (pp. 293–302)