How To Become A Counselor: Education And Training
A counselor is a professional who is trained to help others by listening to them and giving them a piece of advice. This professional is trained in psychology and sociology, in management, health, and education. They also help people to recognize the problems in their lives, allowing them to reflect on what is going on to them and consider alternative ways of overcoming them.
Becoming a Counselor: Education and Training
A profession of a counselor has many requirements: education and training are necessary parts of it.
Earn a Bachelor’s Degree.
Any profession always claims a Bachelor’s Degree. Your Bachelor’s Degree may extend in specialization outside of counseling up to the stage of application for graduate school.
Earn a Master’s Degree in Counseling.
Apply to different schools that offer a Master’s Degree in Counseling. Choose the best that specializes in the program you need. The schools that hold high standards of accreditation, such as CACREP will enhance your chances of getting the best job position.
Take the NCE.
This exam in different states requires to be licensed in that area, therefore check with all the requirements. The National Counselor Exam for Licensure is needed to measure understanding and expertise to provide professional counseling services
Get training and internship.
Training is an experience in the field of counseling that allows a future counselor to perceive and document how professionals perform their job responsibilities during the working process.
The internship is based on a real career focusing on skills and knowledge in the working environment. The student is placed under the control of a professional counselor who can analyze and share knowledge of the student’s observations and practice.
Choose the sphere of specialization.
A counselor is a professional who is required in different spheres of life. There is a variety of counseling specialties that you may want to pursue. Below, in this article, you will see the broad range of these specialists and their responsibilities. Get to know what credentials you will need to practice to further becoming a counselor in a particular sphere.
Continue your education as a counselor.
Each state provides additional requirements to keep your position as a counselor. You will need to check on re-certification processes, which may be required between three to ten years. There are various ways to accrue these re-certifications.
Earn a Doctoral Degree.
A Doctoral degree is not essential to work in a particular field; however, it will put your priorities to get a higher position, such as a director, manager, or a leader of groups of colleagues or students. Having such a degree will also allow you to teach courses for future counselors looking to get their certifications and to become licensed.
Who Is a Virtual Counselor?
There are two types of consultants: offline – this is when you come to a professional in a particular field, and get the necessary advice, advice, and online – this is when a virtual counselor does the same, but online, using text, phone, chat, video, email, and audio.
So-called virtual consultants are gaining more and more popularity. They are considered to be a cost-effective and highly accessible method of providing necessary counseling in the needed sphere.
Why Do People Choose a Virtual Counselor?
There are some reasons what people prefer to use the services of a virtual counselor:
- people cannot leave their homes;
- for some reasons people do not want their partners knowing about using the help from a virtual counselor;
- people have no way to get to the counselor or therapist’s office: they do not have a car, they live in the countryside, and so on;
- people are timid for face-to-face appointments;
- people who want to spend less time on such consultations, and so on;
A virtual counselor can be present in any sphere of life. There can be a school counselor or guidance counselor, mental health counselor, camp counselor, substance abuse counselor, and so on.
School Counselor Jobs
A school counselor or a guidance counselor provides students with academic, career, and college pieces of advice, as well as personal and social guidance through a school counseling program, says wikipedia.org. They also help with annual academic planning and work not only with the individuals but also with the groups of students.
The vital aim of a school counselor or a guidance counselor is to help students in their school succeed and make positive decisions to support academic and personal development. Such counselors work in elementary, middle, or high schools, assisting students in different ways.
Camp Counselor
A camp counselor is a person who works with children in a summer camp. This professional coordinates, guide, and observe all entertaining activities for children and young teenagers during the period they stay at the camp. They are responsible for the well-being and safety of campers, as well as for creating a safe, fun, and rewarding environment for them.
A camp counselor does such things as controlling the product that campers eat, coordinating children’s daily schedule of activities, preventing any conflicts that may arise between campers, delegating responsibilities to maintain the cleanliness of cabin’s facilities, and so on.
Mental Health Counselor
A mental health counselor is a person who helps people to promote emotional wellness. This professional helps people struggling through a wide range of different mental and emotional issues, such as abusing, family, parenting, and marriage problems, and so on.
A mental health counselor also holds interviews, testing, and risk assessment sessions with patients to rate their spiritual condition and formulate a treatment plan. They keep detailed notes on their patients and control their progress. With these tools, therapists can diagnose mental illness and consult their patients on the best treatment.
Substance Abuse Counselor
A substance abuse counselor helps people to recover from drug or alcohol addiction. An addiction counselor is responsible for developing a specific treatment for each client based upon his or her unique situation, considering the patient’s age, level of family or social support, level of addiction: the drugs or alcohol to which the patient is addicted.
To summarize, if you want to become a counselor, you need to:
– be no less than 18 years of age;
– earn a Master’s or Doctoral degree;
– have a plan of being supervised for the first 2,000 hours of practice or submit proof of 2,000+ managed hours in an acceptable professional practice;
– demonstrate professional levels of competence bypassing the National Counseling Exam administered by the National Board for Certified Counselors or an equivalent national examination.
No matter what type of counselor you decide to become, the vital preparation is to pick an accredited program of study that offers rigorous and specialized training, clinical experience opportunities, and expedited access to licensing procedures. The right plan can prepare you to become a better counselor faster so you can begin serving your community and helping people.