The College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) counseling academic unit consists of the clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) and school counseling (SC) programs and articulates its purpose through an overarching mission statement that focuses on best practices to equip counselors in training as change agents in a global society.

The mission of the counseling academic unit is to prepare counselors-in-training with the knowledge, skills and dispositional values to become competent global counselors and leaders.

Clinical mental health counseling mission statement:

The mission of the Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program is to cultivate ethical, professional counselors to effectively assess, diagnose, treat and empower culturally diverse populations. This program fosters faith and learning throughout the curriculum to integrate models of human growth and development and evidence-based practices. Graduate students gain comprehensive knowledge and insight to become competent global professional counselors and leaders.

Clinical mental health counseling program objectives include:

• Counselor Identity and Ethics: Develop best practices and counselor identity as informed by ethical and professional standards and GCU dispositional values
• Diversity and Advocacy: Gain opportunities to practice ethically as advocates for social justice through exposure to multicultural counseling theories and experiential exercises that promote awareness of cultural bias and diverse worldviews
• Human Growth and Development: Acquire knowledge and skills to meet the diverse needs of individuals in the context of human growth and development
• Counseling and Helping Relationships: Cultivate counseling and helping skills by integrating counseling theories and research, engaging in community collaboration and outreach and developing skills to apply in professional and therapeutic relationships
• Group Counseling and Group Work: Integrate theoretical foundations and consider dynamics and therapeutic factors to gain knowledge of theories, develop techniques, promote leadership skills and facilitate the therapeutic group process for diverse clients
• Research and Program Evaluation: Acquire the knowledge and skills needed to identify, evaluate and utilize research to inform best practices in counseling
• Career Development: Attain the knowledge that prepares them to demonstrate skills in vocational counseling and the relationship between roles in career, life, school and mental health
• Assessment and Testing: Demonstrate and apply skills that adequately and consistently use assessments for diagnostic and intervention planning purposes
• Specialty Area for CMHC: Demonstrate knowledge and skills in conducting intake interviews, mental status exam, biopsychosocial history, mental health history, psychological assessment for treatment planning and caseload management, contextual factors and competence in clinical mental health fieldwork