The Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program utilizes a
structured sequence of curricular and clinical experiences to
foster the growth and development of graduate level professionals
who will work in agencies and private practic to provide mental
health services to children, adolescents, adults, and families.
The programs will prepare graduates
to:
Identify the many aspects of professional
functioning and professional identity.
- Summarize the professional roles, functions and relationships
of the counselor with other human service providers.
- Identify the professional organizations and list the major
benefits to members
- Describe the different credentials, including certification and
licensure, and explain the effects of public policy on each.
- Apply the ethical guidelines of both the American Counseling
Association (ACA) and the American Mental Health Counseling
Association (AMHCA) to case examples to decide an appropriate
course of action.
- Use research, best practices, and standards of professional
organizations (ACA, AMHCA) to strengthen and update professional
practice.
Demonstrate knowledge of the cultural
context of relationships, issues, and trends in a
multicultural and diverse society.
- Demonstrate knowledge of multicultural and pluralistic trends
by identifying and summarizing characteristics and concerns between
and within diverse groups nationally and internationally.
- Compare and contrast the acculturative experiences of five
ethnic groups.
- Compare and contrast several theories of racial identity
development.
- Summarize the major theories of multicultural counseling.
- Explain the role of the counselor in social justice, advocacy
and conflict resolution.
Demonstrate knowledge of the nature and
needs of individuals at all developmental levels.
- Compare and contrast the major elements of each of the various
stage theories of development over the life span including the
major psychological, cognitive and moral development.
- Identify the major developmental transitions across the life
span and the potential developmental crises associated with
each.
- Give examples of strategies for facilitating optimum
development over the life span.
Demonstrate knowledge of career
development and related life factors.
- Analyze and compare the major theories of occupational choice
and vocational development.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the purposes, historical development
and unique features of major occupational classification
systems.
- Identify and explain the socio-economic and technical changes
that effect occupational trends and the nature of many
occupations.
- Demonstrate vocational counseling techniques such as assessment
tools, group methods of exploring occupations, job placement
techniques and technology based career development applications and
strategies.
- Demonstrate the use of career assessments with multicultural
populations, including consideration of age and religious
practice.
- Use technology to investigate career interests and options for
clients.
Demonstrate counseling and counsultation
processes.
- Identify the counselor and consultant characteristics and
behavior that influence helping processes.
- Summarize the essential interviewing and counseling skills
necessary to develop a therapeutic relationship, establish
appropriate counseling goals, design intervention strategies,
evaluate client outcomes, and successfully terminate the
counselor-client relationship.
- Demonstrate the above skills in audio-taped counseling sessions
with clients.
- Compare and contrast major theories of counseling.
- Investigate professional research to identify best practice
approaches and summarize findings.
- Outline major ethical issues of doing counseling with a variety
of clients.
Demonstrate both theoretical and
experiential knowledge of goup purpose, development, dynamics,
counseling theories, and group ounseling methods and
skills.
- Describe the principles of group dynamics: group process
components, developmental stages, and group members’ roles and
behaviors.
- Compare and contrast group counseling theories.
- Identify approaches used in task groups, psychoeducational
groups, and therapy groups.
- Discuss the specific ethical and legal considerations involved
with groups.
Demonstrate knowledge of individual and
group approaches to assessment and evaluation.
- Distinguish between standardized and nonstandardized,
norm-referenced and criterion referenced instruments and give
examples of each.
- Define basic psychometric concepts like scales of measurement,
correlation, reliability, and validity.
- Develop strategies for selecting and evaluating assessment
instruments used in counseling.
- Administer, score and interpret assessment and evaluation
instruments and techniques in counseling.
- Use general principles and methods of case conceptualization,
assessment and/or diagnosis to complete a case study.
- Identify relevant ethical standards and apply them to
hypothetical cases involving assessment issues.
- Use technology to administer and interpret client
assessments.
Demonstrate knowledge of research methods,
statistical analysis, needs assessments, and program
evaluation.
- Explain the importance of research to advance counseling as a
profession.
- Identify the opportunities and difficulties in conducting
research in the counseling profession.
- Distinguish between the types of problems appropriately
addressed by qualitative, quantitative, single-case, action and
outcome-based designs.
- Apply research principles to program evaluation.
- Discuss the ethical and legal considerations relevant to
conducting research in counseling.
