Abstract
This paper will discuss the career life of the substance abuse counselor and social worker, Casper Joseph. He always has had a will to listen to other people and assist them, which made him find it to be a perfect quality that would be useful in his field. Having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, a master’s degree in social work, and undergoing other forms of training like internships, he surely is a well equipped individual in his field. Currently he is successfully working with incriminated juveniles and transforming their behavior. Casper is working to ensure that young people are in the right path to become responsible adults and useful citizens. This discussion will cover in detail his employer, the responsibilities of his work, how his position relates to psychology, the challenges and rewards of his work, his employment history, and his long-term and short-term objectives, among other details.
Casper graduated from Benedictine College (currently Benedictine University) in Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology (Casper Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). After college, he needed to become a Certified Addictions Counselor (CADC) so he enrolled at the community college for further training through course work and an internship (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He later enrolled for a master’s degree program at Aurora University and specialized in social work. After completing his master’s degree, Casper undertook internships that led to him becoming a licensed school social worker and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Currently he is the supervisor of the Juvenile Sex Offender Containment Team and of the Multi Systemic Therapy Program for the Juvenile Probation Department of a county circuit court serving the suburbs of Chicago (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Casper’s objective is to bring a systemic change to how practitioners, schools, and law enforcement agencies deal with the problem of drug and alcohol addiction among juveniles (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
On a typical day, Casper begins with administrative responsibilities like making calls and leading meetings (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He may at other times of the day have to do clinical supervisions where he reviews the case notes of therapists, the plans they have for the week, and then offers them his responses (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). “There are days when I have to go with a probation officer to the home of a juvenile when working on highly risky cases,” he explained during the interview (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He also said that he may be conducting a research on other days or working on a service program that is either in the stage of implementation or monitoring (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). “In the afternoon I shift to private practice, and I teach night classes on some days,” he stated (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He then goes home and may have additional work waiting for him there also. “But I do not complain because it is what I want to do,” he added during the interview (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He said that he for more than fifty hour a week but does not regret is since it is what he loves doing (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
Casper’s position relates to psychology greatly. He explained that this is because he offers services as an addictions counselor which involves the use of psychological concepts he learned during his degree course and through work experience (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He explained during the interview, “I have to apply psychological skills such as active listening, assessment of the client’s addiction, and development of an appropriate therapeutic plan for the client” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
Before getting into his field, Casper had assessed his personality to ensure that it matched what he wanted to do. During the interview he explained, “I was always willing to listen to people and deeply interested in helping them deal with whatever they were going through (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). This seemed easy to me” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He added that he chose to study social work for his master’s degree since it also revolved around working with individuals (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Still on the issue of self-tests, he advices those who want to study psychology to assess whether they have a need to connect to other people and help them (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He further included the need for those who want to pursue a career in this field to assess whether they can tolerate any personality (in spite of how different clients are); listen to any client; and whether they have the analytical mind needed for the work (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
With regard to goals, he aims to have the projects he is undertaking on substance abuse completed and printed as soon as possible (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). “In the long term, I target to bring together educators, policy makers, providers, and legislators into a committee that improves how things are done” he explained (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He stated that he aims to have members from schools, the court system, and providers agree on the need to address substance abuse by teenagers, and together come up with effective practices (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He stated during the interview that “I would like to have schools, experts, and state decision makers support these efforts, even if there is still a long way to go” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
As with any job, his of addictions counseling and social services also has its challenges and rewards. Casper said that most people in his field are not willing to go the actual ground where drug abuse and trade takes place (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He stated that he has worked with drug-addicted teenagers and mothers who may be abusive and uncooperative, which is stressful (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). It may take long for some people to open up to him, and it may get very stressful before they can talk to him (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He however remains patient since that is what his job requires sometimes (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He stated during the interview, “I have been to crack houses and told dealers that I do not mean trouble, but they should not sell the substance to the guys I find there, to save those drug users from trouble” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He however clarified that he does not go there alone or at odd hours for safety concerns (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). To him this is rewarding since few people are willing to go to such extents in order to make a difference (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He added that it also feels good when some parents call him at later times to tell him that their children have changed, and have accomplished something worthwhile like graduating (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
The accomplishments that he has made at his job give him a great degree of satisfaction (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Having headed the development and implementation of a successful therapy program for families that can be applied in the home setting is one of the things that give him satisfaction in his career (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). His program reduces drug abuse and disciplinary action, improves school performance, and improves the functioning of families with a success rate of more than 70% (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). An additional form of satisfaction that he gets is that the MST program he supervises at the Juvenile Probation Department also has a success rate that exceeds 70% (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He explained, “Through the successful use of this program, I have helped to reduce recidivism, high risk youth placement rates, and I have also helped reduce costs of care and support efforts for the department by $1 million annually” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He also gains his satisfaction from earning a good salary for which he only agreed to give a range of between $70,000 and $130,000 annually (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). His good salary and succeeding at what he does are also a source of motivation for him but he added that “what gives me the greatest motivation is to see my clients get transformed from being counter-productive to become better and resourceful people, even though that may take a while” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
With regard to dressing for work, Casper stated that “that depends on the situation” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He said that he dresses formally, often in a suit, during official meetings (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). However, he explained that “I do not want to seem too formal when dealing with juveniles so I may have to dress more casually to relate better with them” (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Nonetheless, no one really monitors his dressing and it is mainly based on his own self-judgment (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
On the issue of previous positions, he has held others before he got where he is. He started as a crisis counselor during the earlier days of his career as a CADC (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). “I later shifted positions to counsel juveniles on probation where I had to deal with a lot of insults,” he explained (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). He then shifted to Linden Oaks Hospital where worked on a new residential program (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). The population was similar to the previous one of juveniles. He then got a position as a school social worker which he left after getting recruited by large organization where he started as a residential treatment program’s coordinator, after which he was promoted to the director of a program for adolescents (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). “I was finally able to pay the mortgage working for that organization,” he explained (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). After several years he was employed by the Department of Juvenile Probation in DuPage County where he works to date (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Juvenile probation is under his supervision hence he supervises rather than being supervised (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015). “I also supervise licensed therapists with master’s degrees as they give home-based family therapy,” he added (C. Joseph, personal communication, March 31, 2015).
Through this interview I learned several important things. One is on the importance of self-assessment prior to joining a psychology related career to ensure that the job requirements match my personality. This is to ensure that I can endure the challenges of the job. The second is that I learned on the need to have a postgraduate qualification before becoming a professional. The third thing I learned is that I can do another a postgraduate course that relates to psychology after an undergraduate degree in psychology. The fifth thing I learned is that one is not bothered much by the amount of time he/she works as long as they love the job they do. The sixth thing I learned from Casper is persistence in following a career path, which may be attributed to the successful level he is enjoying today.
