Course Description
This course explores the role of culture and diversity in the counseling process. Students will learn about the various cultural, social, and political factors that influence the mental health of individuals from different backgrounds. The course will cover topics such as cultural identity, acculturation, privilege, and oppression, and how these factors impact the counseling relationship. Students will also examine the ways in which culture influences help-seeking behaviors, communication styles, and coping strategies. Through readings, case studies, and experiential learning activities, students will develop practical skills for providing culturally responsive counseling services, such as conducting culturally sensitive assessments, adapting interventions to meet the needs of diverse clients, and working collaboratively with clients from different backgrounds. Overall, this course aims to prepare students to become culturally competent counselors, capable of working effectively with clients from a variety of cultural backgrounds. This course will place a particular emphasis on serving clients in urban and at-risk communities. This course will provide tools for developing cultural competence particularly needed in addiction counseling. This course will also help students to frame multicultural counseling within a Christian worldview to use in appropriate contexts.
Course Outcomes
After completing this course, you should be able to:
- Identify the counseling competencies needed to serve multicultural clients.
- Reflect on your own cultural identity development to identify personal growth strategies for multicultural counseling competence.
- Reflect on how unconscious bias can influence the counseling process.
- Analyze the relationship between systemic injustice, trauma and rates of addiction between groups.
- Practice using the DSM Cultural Formation Interview in mock counseling sessions.
- Evaluate the intersection of ethical issues and multicultural considerations Christian counselors in both secular and Christian contexts.
- Apply multicultural counseling competencies to case studies of diverse clients across race/ethnicity, gender, social class and other factors.
Prerequisites
Available to undergraduates with 90+ credits and a 3.5+ GPA.
Syllabus
Course Materials & Tuition
| Hays, D. G., & Erford, B. T. (2018). Developing multicultural counseling competence: A systems approach (4th ed.). Pearson. ISBN: 978-0137474196. Ellison, C., & Maynard, E. S. (2002). Healing for the City: Counseling in the Urban Setting. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-57910-979-0. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2015). TIP 59: Improving Cultural Competence . HHS Publication No. SMA15-4849. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Free PDF. | $89.99 (kindle) $9.99 $0.00 |
| Tuition | $800.00 |
| Total Cost of Course | $899.98 |