Eliza initial treatment plan benchmark: a planning guide

The four parts trace a single clinical sequence and they are graded as a sequence, so the paper's coherence matters as much as any individual answer. Intake, assessment and diagnosis, treatment planning, referral: each one is supposed to be constrained by what came before. The most visible expression of that is the pair of cross-cutting measures. The Level 1 measure is a broad screen across symptom domains; the Level 2 measure is the domain-specific follow-up you choose because Level 1 flagged that domain. If your part three CCM-2 has no antecedent in your part one CCM-1 discussion, the paper has four sections rather than one plan.

Part one asks two things and the second is the more analytical. How you would use the CCM-1 is a question about purpose and sequence — when in the intake it is administered, who completes it, and crucially what a positive item does next, since the measure screens rather than diagnoses. The specific questions to be answered by the end of the biopsychosocial assessment is a planning question: what do you still not know that would change your formulation? Frame them as gaps rather than as a standard checklist. Risk, substance use, developmental and trauma history, medical contributors, current supports and functioning are the usual candidates, but the ones worth writing down are the ones this intake document leaves open.

Part two is where diagnostic discipline shows. Assessment related to symptomology means describing the presentation in clinical terms — onset, duration, severity, functional impairment — before naming anything. The brief asks for both a DSM and an ICD diagnosis, which are two systems rather than one, so give the DSM diagnosis and its criteria basis and then the corresponding ICD code, and note where the two do not map cleanly if that is the case. Then the initial goals and plan: goals stated as observable changes rather than as states of mind, and a plan that says modality, frequency and duration.

Part three contains the requirement most students under-read. Beyond the CCM-2, you must identify one additional assessment outside those provided by the APA that measures what the counsellor is trying to assess. That is an instruction to go and find a published instrument — a validated symptom or functioning measure appropriate to your formulation — and to justify it by what your treatment goals need measured. Name it, say what it measures, and say why it fits this case. A generic answer here is immediately visible, because the whole point is that you selected something specific.

The communication requirement in part three is easy to answer with a sentence and worth more than that. Conveying assessment findings to a client and family means deciding what to say, in what order, in what language, and to whom — and the family's presence raises a real question about what the client wants shared. Prioritising needs and formulating agreed outcomes is collaborative by construction: the word agreed rules out a plan the counsellor arrives with. Say how disagreement would be handled, because that is where the collaboration is actually tested.

Part four is short in the brief and rewards specificity. Referral has three separate questions: what referrals, how you would raise them with the client, how you would know whom to refer to, and how you would follow up. The middle one is an interpersonal problem — a referral can be heard as being passed on — and the last two are practical: what makes a referral source appropriate, whether they are accepting clients, whether the client can reach and afford them, and what you do to confirm the connection was made rather than assuming. On mechanics: four subheadings matching the four parts, 1,500 to 1,750 words, three to five scholarly resources, APA format, and a rubric to read before starting.