Expert Opinion & Client Wants/Needs

Assignment Due Date: July 5, 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to ensure that students are incorporating expert opinion and client needs in keeping with the evidence-based process. The student will acquire an understanding of the characteristics, abilities and needs of the individuals served and demonstrate the therapeutic use of self in understanding the points of view of the mentor, clients and agency.

Knowledge: The student will gather as much information as possible to determine the client’s needs/wants and mentor’s expert opinion regarding the PICOT statement.

  • Expert Opinion- To discern the mentor’s expert opinion, the student will review each of the recommendations from the literature summary with their mentor. The mentor will offer insight and feedback as to how this maybe incorporated into his/her practice/agency. This may include feedback that one or more of the recommendations may not be practical to implement. If this is the case, the student must include this in their summary and offer explanation.
  • Client Needs/Wants- The student may use whatever means are available and approved by the mentor to gather client needs/wants with regards to the PICOT/recommendations from the literature. This may include but is not limited to interviewing the mentor, interviewing client(s), gathering program attendance data, client satisfaction data, reviewing literature on likes/dislikes of identified populations, and information gleaned from population summary. The student will indicate which recommendations are consistent with client wants/needs and which are not.

Task: The student will summarize the available information into a single blog post with 2 headings: “Expert Opinion” and “Client Wants/Needs”. Again, both sections need to be tied back to the PICOT statement. To submit, the student will post in their blog under the tab titled “Expert Opinion and Client Wants/Needs”. The student must describe in the blog post what sources they used to gather the information and cite them according to APA style as appropriate.

* Please note: An in-person (Zoom, call, etc.) meeting with the student’s mentor is required to complete this assignment.

Criteria for Success: The blog post has received written approval from both mentor and instructor in the comments section.