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MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING

This course provides an introductory understanding of the ways in which mental health and counseling are impacted by identity (e.g., individual race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, size, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, sex assigned at birth, etc.) and systems of power (e.g., racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc.). This course focuses on the ways these systems provide privilege for some groups and serve to oppress others. We discuss various systems in which this power is displayed in the United States and the ways that these systems of power work with one another (i.e., intersectionality; Crenshaw, 1989). 

Students are asked to engage in deep personal reflelection and sharing throughout the semester through a variety of mechanisms: participation in class, reflection writing/Vlogs, small group work, and various assignments. Four corse componets of coursework and grades are identified below. 

Racial Healing

1. Weekly work and discussion on the Racial Healing Handbook

2. Three self-selected texts about race/racism, written by authors of color. In F21 the emphasis was not exclusively on race -- therefore the first reading was about race, the second book was a memoir written from an #OwnVoices perspective, and the third text was a graphic memoir or narrative fiction written from #OwnVoices

3. Reaction Paper or Vlog: describe what you learned from each of the three texts

Small Group Dialogues

1. Participate weekly in a consistent small group for half the class discussing your own relationship to privilege and oppression

2.  Facilitate your small group twice in the semester

3. Document experiences with group

Social Action Engagement

Identify a topical issue connected to multiculturalism. Using your multicultural knowledge and awareness, write one of the following, calling others to action: 

1. An op-ed for a local news source

2. A letter to the editor with remarks on a recent publication, OR

3. A letter to a member of congress 

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Students are encouraged, though not required, to submit their work to the appropriate outlet

White Papers &
Therapist Toolkit

White Papers: In groups of up to three, students choose a specific issue relevant to legislation and multiculturalism and develop quality White Papers that translate research to accessible position statements with both text and visual depictions of information. 

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Therapist Toolkit: Choosing any topic that is related to multicultural considerations that can be addressed in therapy, find, read, and write a brief description of:

  • 6 scholarly (articles, book chapters) works and

  • 4 client-friendly (Youtube videos, Podcast episodes, webpages) works

If willing, students can share their work with the class to create a larger resource body. 

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