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Rehabilitation Counseling Concentration

  • Credits:
    15

Concentration Description

Rehabilitation Counseling is an elective, clinical concentration for students who wish to pursue national certification as a rehabilitation counselor (CRC) and state licensure as a rehabilitation counselor (LRC). Coupled with the MEd in Mental Health Counseling, students simultaneously complete the academic requirements for Mental Health Counseling licensure.

Learning Outcomes

A focus on rehabilitation counseling helps practitioners to more comprehensively serve the mental health and vocational needs of individuals with cognitive, developmental, psychological, medical, intellectual and physical challenges seek employment, maintain employment or return to work. These individuals include veterans who face mental health and rehabilitation complications, and a host of other issues related to the interface of disabilities and mental health.

Careers

Graduates will be qualified to pursue national certification and state licensure as rehabilitation counselors, and for the more general licensure in mental health counseling, allowing for significant career flexibility.

Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC) by the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification and Licensed Rehabilitation Counselor by the Mass. Board of Allied Mental Health and Human Services. Candidates must also pass an exam and have had 36 months of acceptable employment.

Rehabilitation counselors typically work in settings such as mental health agencies, the Veterans Administration, state vocational rehabilitation agencies, insurance companies dealing with disability, non-profit agencies, employee assistance programs, disability management firms and consulting agencies, among others.

Curriculum

Core Courses
12
Credits
Vocational and Affective Counseling
CCP 655

This course acquaints students with the process, history and philosophy of rehabilitation counseling. Class discussions will focus on the organizational structure of the rehabilitation system, the professional identity of the rehabilitation counselor, and legal and ethical issues in the practice of rehabilitation counseling and how it complements the area of mental health delivery of services. This course includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.

Medical and Psychological Aspects of Disabilities
CCP 643 • 3 credit(s)
The course offers students with little or no exposure to advanced medical sciences the opportunity to examine the physiological and anatomical basis for many chronic diseases and medical conditions they will encounter in a rehabilitation counseling setting. Students examine the etiology, progress, and potential resolution of a wide range of disorders, as well as the potential social implications consequent on these disabilities.
Vocational Assessment and Evaluation
CCP 656 • 3 credit(s)

This course provides an orientation to individual appraisal, standardized testing, and test and measurement principles found in psychological testing for mental health assessments, but expands and provides increased focus on vocational and career interest testing. It includes standard test areas such as achievement, aptitude, interest, personality, situational testing, behavioral observation, work samples and functional evaluations. This course will also address career alternatives for the rehabilitation counselor. This course includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.

Rehabilitation Plan Development
CCP 654 • 3 credit(s)

This course acquaints students with case and caseload management, delivery systems for public, private and nonprofit settings for individuals with cognitive, intellectual, medical, physical and psychiatric disabilities. This course will address laws and ethical standards that impact rehabilitation counseling and the range of community resources available to the counselor whose goal is the effective and comprehensive mental health recovery of individuals, including achieving maximum independence and employment. This course includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.

Clinical Interventions for Combat Stress and Trauma
CCP 727 • 3 credit(s)
This course is taught in the fall only. The content and design of this course is to familiarize students with the history, diagnosis and treatment of combat stress and trauma (CST) in the lives of primarily military people, but also the effects of CST on civilian populations exposed to war operations. The course will further provide information concerning the effects of CST on veterans’ families. Through lecture, class discussion, directed readings and case studies, students will become acquainted with causes and effective treatments of CST. Emphasis will be placed on diagnosis, treatment, referral resources and the support systems. Students will gain knowledge of: 1) the prevalence and complexity of combat stress and trauma; 2) counseling and treatment methods for returning veterans and their families; and 3) referral resources for veterans. Students will demonstrate proficiency in understanding the nature and complexity of combat stress and trauma. Includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.
Trauma Interventions in Schools
CCP 729 • 3 credit(s)
This course is taught in the spring term only. Trauma, chronic fear and stress impact children’s neurobiological development which affects critical brain functions (memory, language, problem-solving, higher order thinking, and executive function skills). The support a child/adolescent receives from those around them and the communities they inhabit heavily influences the trauma response and forward growth. Schools are children’s communities. This course will explore the impact of trauma on the child/adolescent’s neurobiological development, relationships, behavior, learning and academic performance. Trauma sensitive approaches in schools are described, including prevention and treatment of physical, sexual and substance abuse, as well as clinical interventions related to stabilization and the development of coping and social skills. School and system-wide crisis prevention, intervention and postvention planning and implementation will also be reviewed. Includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction. This course addresses the following Massachusetts State Standard for School Adjustment Counselor/School Social Worker: d: Prevention and treatment of substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, and violence in PreK-12 students. This course addresses the following Massachusetts State Standards for School Guidance Counseling: f. Knowledge of strategies used for the prevention and treatment of substance, physical and sexual abuse, the spectrum of mental illnesses, and violence in PreK-12 students
Trauma Courses
3
Credits

Choose one of the following courses to complete your concentration. (These courses are not required for School Adjustment Counseling students.)

Post Traumatic Stress Reactions
CCP 724 • 3 credit(s)
This course focuses on theory, research and practice of trauma by addressing systemic and cultural aspects of diagnosis, assessment, dynamics, and trauma treatment. This includes acute stress disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and complex PTSD, as well as dual diagnoses. Immediate and long-term effects of trauma on various populations will be explored: trauma in adults, children, and families, sexual and physical abuse survivors; victims of crimes, large scale disaster, war; workplace violence and complicated grief. Other topics include trauma resilience, natural courses of coping; transgenerational aspects of traumatization and life span perspectives on trauma. This course addresses the following Massachusetts State Standard for School Adjustment Counselor/School Social Worker: d: Prevention and treatment of substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, and violence in PreK-12 students. This course includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.
Clinical Interventions for Combat Stress and Trauma
CCP 727 • 3 credit(s)
This course is taught in the fall only. The content and design of this course is to familiarize students with the history, diagnosis and treatment of combat stress and trauma (CST) in the lives of primarily military people, but also the effects of CST on civilian populations exposed to war operations. The course will further provide information concerning the effects of CST on veterans’ families. Through lecture, class discussion, directed readings and case studies, students will become acquainted with causes and effective treatments of CST. Emphasis will be placed on diagnosis, treatment, referral resources and the support systems. Students will gain knowledge of: 1) the prevalence and complexity of combat stress and trauma; 2) counseling and treatment methods for returning veterans and their families; and 3) referral resources for veterans. Students will demonstrate proficiency in understanding the nature and complexity of combat stress and trauma. Includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.
Trauma Specific Interventions
CCP 728 • 3 credit(s)
Students will learn about assumptions, principles and concepts of trauma-specific treatment approaches and trauma-informed care. Students will gain knowledge of theory and practice of psychological first aid, its application in disaster mental health, crisis intervention and crisis counseling. They will become familiar with major approaches in trauma treatment: individual and group trauma counseling, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, and exposure therapies, psychopharmacological treatments, and newly emerging approaches. The acquired knowledge and skills can be applied in providing individual and group crisis intervention, brief trauma counseling and treatment of survivors of sexual abuse, war trauma, torture, disasters and workplace violence and other. The ethics of trauma work will be thoroughly covered. This course includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction.
Trauma Interventions in Schools
CCP 729 • 3 credit(s)
This course is taught in the spring term only. Trauma, chronic fear and stress impact children’s neurobiological development which affects critical brain functions (memory, language, problem-solving, higher order thinking, and executive function skills). The support a child/adolescent receives from those around them and the communities they inhabit heavily influences the trauma response and forward growth. Schools are children’s communities. This course will explore the impact of trauma on the child/adolescent’s neurobiological development, relationships, behavior, learning and academic performance. Trauma sensitive approaches in schools are described, including prevention and treatment of physical, sexual and substance abuse, as well as clinical interventions related to stabilization and the development of coping and social skills. School and system-wide crisis prevention, intervention and postvention planning and implementation will also be reviewed. Includes the fundamental occupational tasks of assessment, case presentation, case collaboration, team membership and client interaction. This course addresses the following Massachusetts State Standard for School Adjustment Counselor/School Social Worker: d: Prevention and treatment of substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, and violence in PreK-12 students. This course addresses the following Massachusetts State Standards for School Guidance Counseling: f. Knowledge of strategies used for the prevention and treatment of substance, physical and sexual abuse, the spectrum of mental illnesses, and violence in PreK-12 students
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