Mental Health and Community Counseling

Mental Health and Community Counseling

Introduction

The dissemination of the proposed 2008 standards for counselor education programs by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2007) has stimulated thought and discussion about the current status and future direction of the profession. Community counseling, in particular, has experienced such major changes over the years that its present status could be considered an identity crisis. This article reviews the current status and future of the community counseling specialization, which may be considered the core of professional counseling. Contrary to a pessimistic view in which the demise of community counseling would be heralded by a transition to a clinical counseling specialty, the foundations of the profession and developments over the years suggest that community counseling will thrive in the future.

Community counseling in 2015 and beyond may best represent the developmental and prevention perspectives that have been foundational in distinguishing counseling from other professions such as social work and psychology. The present article includes a literature review, analyses of trends in the extant literature, and summaries of research and expert opinion regarding the future of community counseling. The article concludes with a list of ten recommendations for preparing community counselors for 2015 and beyond, as well as implications for counseling, future research, practice, and theory.

Current Status of Community Counseling

The current status of community counseling could be described as an identity crisis in which a generic model of counseling practice in community settings is being transformed by increasing professional differentiation and societal changes. In their review of the current status of community counseling programs, Hershenson and Berger (2001) observed that the specialization had not developed its own unique identity. While community counseling has been second only to school counseling in number of accredited programs (104 in 2001, 163 in 2007; CACREP, 2007), the field has no specialized certification or organization and no professional journal. In 1981 CACREP established accreditation in community counseling and other agency settings (CCOAs), but programs were allowed to define their own training approaches until 1994, when criteria were specified (Hershenson & Berger, 2001). Although the first textbooks on community counseling were published in the 1970s (e.g., Amos & Williams, 1972; Lewis & Lewis, 1977), professional resources articulating the viability of community counseling were not common until the 1990s (Hershenson, Power, & Waldo, 1996; Lewis, Lewis, Daniels, & D'Andrea, 1998).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the present study was to examine the major themes and emerging trends in the area of community counseling. Consequently, a content analysis was conducted in order to assess the areas of community counseling as related to current status and potential benefits. The following sections will present content analysis procedures and results.

Method

Procedures and Criteria

The present study utilized a research team, which consisted of two senior faculty members and two doctoral level graduate assistants. The content analysis employed two rounds of analysis, which investigated both the community and mental health counseling ...