01 Jul Peer response:

(Instructions) Summarize your peers’ responses—To help ensure you understand your peers’ responses, summarize their main ideas in your own words. 2. Give plenty of support—As a community, we want to provide each other with supportive feedback but that should not come at the price of value. Go beyond “Nice post” and generic comments. Once you understand their posts, identify how your peers’ posts enhanced your learning, clarified specific issues, or challenged you to think differently. 3. Constructively challenge your peers—Once you have provided positive feedback, provide a meaningful response based on your own opinion and understanding of the discussion question. This could include identifying where your peers went off track in their responses, elements you disagree with, or questions to help them to expand their thinking on a topic. 4. End with a positive—To help keep the discussion cordial and professional, end with a positive. Connect your challenging response or question back to something positive or interesting about their posts. Integrating positive comments with constructive feedback helps keep the discussion flowing and individuals on track for meaningful discourse.(Peer response)I am beyond excited to be pursuing my master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. Within this area of study, my focus remains on that of the forensic psychology field which has interested me since my undergraduate studies many years ago. I want to acquire my master’s degree so that I can continue my career of working with juveniles. I believe that at-risk youth are individuals with the highest importance because they are easily susceptible to peers and environmental influences but also are have higher success rates with diversion and recidivism programs and interventions. Youths are the future and without the proper support and guidance needed to be successful, as a society we will not continue to be successful.  On the American Psychological Association’s website, one source specifically examines the importance of juvenile evaluations and treatment, particularly rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. The Forensic Evaluation and Treatment of Juveniles: Innovation and Best Practices, explores the ‘targeted rehabilitation services to avoid unfair treatment and redirect youth to healthier life choices.’ (Salekin, Randall T., 2015). I believe that by gaining the knowledge and skills through school, on the job learning and from peers and colleagues I can be a positive support for at-risk youths and juveniles who are already involved in the system. By providing healthy interventions to these youths, I feel as though I can be an asset to a population that is of the highest importance.