Courses & Learning Outcomes
Community-Based Block (CBB) Program
Learning Outcomes
The Community-Based Block program seeks to develop:
- the counseling skills of relationship building, process and therapeutic intervention;
- the academic skills of critical thinking, systematic inquiry, program evaluation and effective written and oral communication;
- and the personal growth experiences necessary to enable graduates to use their skills for the benefit of clients.
Our program also seeks to adapt counseling skills to the needs of different populations so as to train truly competent multicultural counselors.
Students are able to gain a unique experience of becoming counselors through live supervision at the Center for Community Counseling and Engagement in City Heights, one of the most diverse communities in San Diego.
The responsibility students assume for their own education helps them develop the proficiencies they will need to become effective change agents in schools, colleges and/or social service agencies.
Course Sequence
Year 1: Fall
Development of self-understanding. Cross-cultural communication skills needed for becoming an effective counselor. May be repeated with new content.
Legal, ethical, and professional issues in counseling practice, research, and training. Cultural underpinnings and clinical implications of legal and ethical codes.
Supervised practice in multicultural community counseling and social justice practice, to include democratic processes, community-building, and professional communication skills. Social change through working with people in communities, increasing self and other-awareness, and relationship building. Fulfills licensure requirements for LPCC.
Year 1: Spring
Supervised experience in counseling.
Supervised practice in group counseling, community counseling, and group leadership. May be repeated with new content.
Counseling and marriage and family therapy theories and their impact on the practices of counselors, school counselors, school psychologists, marriage-family therapists and their clients. Approaches and applications for counseling and therapy. Research on counseling and marriage and family therapy.
Descriptions of mental health disorders within biological, individual, familial, and larger social contexts. Focus on Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classification system and relationship to family functioning.
Systemic models of intervention for families, couples presenting problems related to substance abuse. Includes treatment issues of interdependence, power, intimacy, generational patterns, addition and relapse. Fulfills marriage and family therapy and LPCC requirements.
Year 2: Fall
Supervised internship experience in counseling or school psychology activities. Application to take the course must be made early during the preceding semester. May be repeated with new content.
School Learning. Implications of theory and research in behavioral sciences for the understanding of human behavior.
Supervised practice and application of individual assessment measures from a multicultural and social justice perspective in community counseling. Test development processes. Social justice and cultural factors in testing and interpretation. Current uses of tests in community settings. Fulfills licensure requirements for LPCC.
Consultation theory, process, and research for counselors and school psychologists. Emphasis on mental health and problem-solving consultation in multicultural education and mental health settings
Issues, insights, and techniques for improving effectiveness in working with culturally diverse populations.
Year 2: Spring
Supervised internship experience in counseling or school psychology activities. Application to take the course must be made early during the preceding semester.
Study of selected areas in counseling culminating in a written project with emphasis on counseling as a profession.
Multicultural and social justice; crisis and trauma counseling and therapy to include historical and philosophical origins of current theories and practices and implications for multidisciplinary treatment. Trauma and diversity.
Medical, cultural, systemic perspectives on use of psychopharmacology in marriage and family therapy practice. Overview of most commonly used drugs in psychotherapeutic treatment. Fulfills marriage and family therapy and LPCC licensure requirements.
Approaches to understanding sexual functioning and intimacy through multicultural, historical, and relational clinical theory frameworks. Specific sexual issues presented in therapy, treatment planning, and intervention. Fulfills marriage and family therapy and LPCC licensure requirements.
Sociocultural, developmental, family and individual contexts of violence in couples’ relationships. Assessment with a focus on systemic ideas and practices. Legal, ethical, and person-of-the-therapist influences on assessment. Fulfills marriage and family therapy and LPCC licensure requirements.
Examines child abuse assessment within individual, family sociocultural, developmental and systemic frameworks. Treatment goals, issues and strategies derived from family systems therapies. Fulfills marriage and family therapy licensure requirement.
College planning, career readiness, and career technical education P-16. Technology promoting equity, access, and opportunity for culturally diverse populations to post secondary options.