NR-605 Week 8 closes the practicum where the clinical work also closes: on how care ends or moves. The catalog names referral among this course's care strategies, and a final stage in an eight-week session usually asks for the summative document, a case carried from formulation through treatment to a defensible ending, with the therapeutic relationship handled rather than simply stopped. Your section may print this as NR 605 or NR605; it is the same course. Chamberlain publishes no syllabi outside Canvas. The placement here is our teaching judgment from the course's catalog arc; your section's rubric decides what your week actually asks.
What NR-605 Week 8 asks for
The territory has two halves that most students write as one. The first is termination as a clinical event: planned or unplanned, prepared or abrupt, and what it means to a person whose difficulties may have involved other people leaving. Termination done well is a piece of treatment, not an administrative act, and the writing has to show the work of it, including what was said about the ending and how the person responded.
The second half is transfer of information. A referral or a handover is a document with a job: to let the next clinician resume care without starting over. That means the reason for referral stated as a question rather than a diagnosis, what has been tried and at what dose, what worked partially, what the person will and will not accept, the current risk picture, and what is pending. A referral written as a diagnosis and a phone number wastes the treatment history you spent eight weeks building.
Because this stage is often summative, the deliverable is usually longer than earlier weeks, frequently a comprehensive case write-up of five to eight pages, sometimes with a reflective component on your own development across the practicum. The boundary holds to the last page: your clinical hours, hour log, preceptor forms and any signed documentation are yours alone and stay that way. If your section runs a discussion this week, compose it outside the classroom, because a posted response cannot be edited once it is submitted.
The NR-605 Week 8 method, step by step
Six moves that turn a closing case into a document the next clinician could actually use.
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Write the ending you actually had
Planned completion, rotation ending, patient disengagement and transfer are four different endings with four different clinical shapes. Name yours in the first paragraph, because everything about the termination work depends on which one it was and on how much notice existed.
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Compress the treatment history into a usable arc
What was tried, in what order, at what dose or frequency, with what result and what tolerability. A reader needs the sequence and the outcomes, not a retelling of every visit. Aim for a version a colleague could read in ninety seconds and act on.
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State the referral question, not the referral label
What do you want the next clinician to decide or do. Reassess whether the residual symptoms represent an incompletely treated condition or a medication effect. That is a question. Referral to psychiatry is a destination with no task attached, and destinations get triaged to the bottom of a list.
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Report the termination conversation
When the ending was raised, how many sessions of notice there were, what the person said, what feelings appeared and how they were handled, and what was agreed about future contact. This is the section a strong paper spends real words on and a weak one summarizes in a sentence.
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Build a relapse and re-entry plan the person could follow
Early warning signs in their own words, the first three things to do, who to contact, and what to do outside office hours. Written for the person rather than about them, because the point of the plan is that it works when you are no longer there.
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Close the reflective loop on your own practice
If your guide asks for reflection, tie it to specific decisions across the case rather than to general growth. What you would do earlier next time, what you overweighted at intake, what you now recognize in a presentation like this one. Specific, dated to a decision, and short.
A layout and word budget for a summative case and handover
Below is the drafting frame our tutors use for a closing practicum case, sized for roughly 1,600 to 1,900 words. It is our own outline rather than anything the university issues, and your week's rubric outranks it wherever the two disagree. Scale each target proportionally if your assigned length differs.
| Section | What belongs in it | Word target |
|---|---|---|
| Case in brief and formulation | A de-identified sketch and the working understanding that governed treatment, compressed to its load-bearing parts. | 250 to 300 |
| Treatment arc and results | What was tried, in order, with doses or frequencies, outcomes and tolerability, written for a colleague in a hurry. | 320 to 380 |
| Current status and risk | Where things stand now, the current risk picture, and anything unresolved or pending. | 220 to 260 |
| Termination work | The type of ending, the notice given, the conversation, the reactions, and what was agreed. | 300 to 350 |
| Referral or handover | The referral question, what the next clinician needs on day one, and what the person will and will not accept. | 280 to 330 |
| Relapse and re-entry plan | Warning signs in the person's words, first actions, contacts, and after-hours instructions. | 200 to 240 |
Evidence craft for a summative document
Continuity claims need sources like any other. Statements about what happens after care ends, or about the risk attached to a gap between providers, are empirical claims. Attach a source and a year, because a summative paper is where unsupported assertions accumulate fastest.
Keep the treatment history verifiable. Doses, frequencies, durations and outcomes should be reported as they were documented rather than reconstructed from memory. Where you are uncertain, say approximate and say why, since an inaccurate history in a handover has consequences past the grade.
Do not cite the whole course. Long papers attract long reference lists, and a list that outruns the argument reads as padding. Cite the claims that carry weight, particularly the ones a reader might contest, and let the descriptive material stand on the case.
Re-check currency at the end. A summative document often recycles sources from earlier weeks. Give the list one pass for clinical claims that have aged past the five year default, and keep older conceptual sources where the sentence explains why the original still holds.
Five mistakes that cost points in this week's territory
- Termination written as scheduling. An ending reported as a final appointment date skips the clinical work the week is built to assess.
- A referral with no question in it. Naming a service without naming the task leaves the next clinician to reconstruct your reasoning from scratch.
- A treatment history that reads as a diary. Visit by visit narration buries the arc a colleague needs and eats the words the analysis rows are paying for.
- A relapse plan written about the person. Warning signs listed in clinical vocabulary cannot be used by the person they are meant to protect.
- Reflection with no decision attached. General statements about growth score low; a named decision you would make differently, with the reason, scores high.
Before you submit
- The type of ending is named in the opening paragraph
- The treatment arc gives order, doses or frequencies, outcomes and tolerability
- The referral appears as a question the next clinician can answer
- The termination conversation is reported, including what the person said
- The relapse plan is written in language the person could use without you
- Every reference appears in the text and every in-text citation appears in the list
Closing out NR-605 this week?
Send the summative instructions and the rubric from Canvas. A premium original draft comes back in 24 to 48 hours with the termination work written out and the handover built around a real referral question, and revisions run until the grade lands.