Counselor Education

The Counseling Education program at St. John's University offers a blend of courses designed to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for becoming a knowledgeable, thoughtful, skillful, and caring school & mental health counselor.

Our courses have proven to be an effective training process for our graduates who seek employment as professional counselors in varied settings or who desire advanced graduate study beyond the master’s degree.

Counseling Department Objectives

1. To train graduate students as professional counselors in School or Clinical Mental Health settings in accordance with CACREP standards, while orienting students to the role and identity of a professional counselor, legal and ethical issues of the profession, and guidelines of the American Counseling Association. 
    
2. To train graduate students to be ethical and effective counseling practitioners, and empower them to utilize counseling skills in a variety of modalities, including individual counseling, group counseling, career counseling, assessment, and consultation.
    
3. To train students to utilize appropriate evidence-based counseling theories and treatment modalities, and to ensure that students select counseling approaches in alliance with the developmental level and cultural beliefs of the clients/students they serve.
    
4. To foster an expectation of cultural awareness, social justice and responsibility among counselors-in-training following our Vincentian mission, and to hold students to an expectation of respect for diversity, equity, and inclusion in their academic, personal, and clinical practices.
    
5. To foster critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and current knowledge of the counseling profession utilizing research and scholarship, while also requiring continual, critical self-reflection for internal biases and ongoing self-assessment of counselor wellness.
    
6. To foster an expectation of continued professional development and advocacy for the counseling profession and for the clients we serve, via active involvement in counseling organizations, ongoing training, and advocacy efforts, both throughout their program and beyond.

Programs

• M.S.Ed. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
• M.S.Ed. in School Health Counseling

Department Contact

Heather C. Robertson, Ph.D., LMHC, CRC, CASAC
Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Counselor Education
St. John's University 
The School of Education
Sullivan Hall, Room 521
[email protected]; 718-990-2108