A third-year doctoral student in the UNC Greensboro Department of Counseling and Counselor Education, J. Angel Dianna was recently selected as a recipient of the 2023 National Board of Certified Counselors Minority Fellowship, earning a $20,000 stipend.
While pursuing her doctorate as a student in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development in the UNC Greensboro School of Education, Melissa Carmona continues to work as a clinical mental health counselor in her practice, Cafecito Counseling. She specializes in trauma and eating disorders, but has worked with numerous people in need of evaluations for immigration services.
In rankings released by U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday, April 25, the UNC Greensboro School of Education ranks in a tie for 83rd nationally among Graduate Schools of Education for 2023-2024. Within the state of North Carolina, the UNCG SOE holds the fourth-highest ranking in the same category.
After earning her Ph.D. in Counselor and Counselor Education from UNC Greensboro in 2008, Dr. Elysia Clemens headed west to Colorado and a tenure-track position in the counseling department at the University of Northern Colorado where she remained for over a decade. But then Clemens jumped at the opportunity to move into a role with the University of Denver’s Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, a unit that assists government agencies and community partners with research into public policy matters.
Led by Dr. Carrie Wachter Morris, members of the Department of Counseling and Educational Development (CED) inside of the UNC Greensboro School of Education have been awarded a $5.6 million grant from the United States Department of Education. The grant, to be used over five years, is a training grant to directly address the large, unmet need for the preparation of mental health professionals in public schools.
Following 13 years as a school counselor with Jersey City Public Schools, CED alumna Sweety Patel is now in her fourth year as the Director of School Counseling Services for Carteret Public Schools in New Jersey.
The history of the counseling profession parallels the history of the counseling program at UNC Greensboro in many ways. Those parallels are perhaps most obvious in the life and legacy of Dr. Nicholas A. Vacc, former faculty member (1979-2002) and department chair (1986-1996), and one of the driving forces in the professionalization of the counseling field.
The Round Rock Independent School District, just north of Austin, Texas, serves about 45,000 students and is where Dr. Amy Grosso, a 2008 Ph.D. graduate of UNC Greensboro’s Department of Counseling and Educational Development (CED), has helped to implement what may be the future of the relationship between schools and the police.
Trauma-based care is a topic that has become ubiquitous within the mental health community in response to the many stressors people endure today – the pandemic and myriad other inflictions – isolation, fear, poverty, health problems, crime, accidents, and abuse.
With mental health issues on the rise, it is important for counselors and teachers to enter the school with a trauma-informed lens. Trauma impacts so many individuals, including students, teachers, parents and legal guardians, and other school personnel. A trauma-informed approach helps teachers and school personnel consider how trauma impacts learning and behaviors of the children and adolescents in their classroom.