Mental Health Counseling

Quality instruction, experiential, and student-centered

A career in Mental Health Counseling is an extraordinarily rewarding profession that offers many opportunities in a rapidly growing field. Alfred’s CACREP-accredited program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, with its emphasis on quality instruction, experiential learning, and student-centered faculty, prepares students to meet the challenges of providing high quality mental health care to a variety of populations across many settings. Students have opportunities to receive significant financial assistance, making an Alfred graduate degree in Mental Health Counseling more affordable than ever.

School/Division

School of Graduate & Continuing Studies

Campus Locations

Main Campus - Alfred, NY

Degrees

Mental Health Counseling (MS Ed, CAS)

Program Contact

Kevin Curtin

curtink@spicydom.com

607-871-2212

Growing Profession

CACREP Accreditation

A CACREP accredited program like ours provides recognition that the quality of the program has been evaluated and meets the highest standards set by the profession. Students can be assured that relevant professional knowledge and skills are included throughout the curriculum. Graduates from Alfred University’s Mental Health Counseling program have easily been hired for mental health counseling positions and human services leadership roles in New York and throughout the country.

Holistic Approach

Mental Health Counselors have a skillset that is unique among other human service disciplines, with its holistic approach that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals. Alfred’s mental health counseling graduate students are trained in a wide range of evidence-based practices, thus becoming well-prepared for the demands of the profession.

Affordable Graduate Study

All full-time students are awarded a 5-hour graduate assistantship that provides a $3,000 reduction in tuition. Students may instead choose to apply for assistantships that provide even more financial benefits, such as monetary stipends and more than 50% tuition reduction. Through the recent Federal Department of Education award as well as a variety of other enhanced assistantships, most mental health counseling students take advantage of these significant financial benefits.

Graduate Assistantships

Full-Time Sequence

First Year

Fall Semester

COUN 602 Professional & Ethical Foundations of Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 605 Career Development and Life Planning - 3 credits
COUN 606 Human Development - 3 credits
COUN 636 Principles of Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 642 Multicultural Counseling - 3 credits
EDUC 621 Mandated Reporter Training - 0 Credits

Spring Semester

COUN 603 Foundations of Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 615 Psychopathology & Differential Diagnosis - 3 credits
COUN 638 Advanced Counseling Theory & Practice - 3 credits
COUN 639 Group Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 659 Practicum in Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits

Summer Session

COUN 671 Research and Statistics - 3 credits (summer session I)
COUN 619 Program Development - 3 credits (summer session II)

Second Year

Fall Semester

COUN 626 Assessment in Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 641 Counseling Special Populations - 3 credits
COUN 652 Techniques of Family Therapy - 3 credits
COUN 663 Internship in Mental Health Counseling I - 3 credits

Spring Semester

COUN 628 Assessment in Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 695 Topics in Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 664 Internship in Mental Health Counseling II - 6 credits

Part-Time Sequence

First Year

Fall Semester

COUN 602 Professional & Ethical Foundations of Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 606 Human Development - 3 credits
COUN 636 Principles of Counseling - 3 credits
EDUC 621 Mandated Reporter Training - 0 credits

Spring Semester

COUN 615 Psychopathology & Differential Diagnosis - 3 credits
COUN 638 Advanced Counseling Theory & Practice - 3 credits
COUN 639 Group Counseling - 3 credits

Summer Session

COUN 671 Research and Statistics - 3 credits (summer session I)
COUN 619 Program Development - 3 credits (summer session II)

Second Year

Fall Semester

COUN 605 Career Development and Life Planning - 3 credits
COUN 626 Assessment in Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 642 Multicultural Counseling - 3 credits

Spring Semester

COUN 603 Foundations of Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 659 Practicum in Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 695 Topics in Counseling - 3 credits

Third Year

Fall Semester

COUN 641 Counseling Special Populations - 3 credits
COUN 652 Techniques of Family Therapy - 3 credits
COUN 663 Internship in Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits

Spring Semester

COUN 628 Assessment in Mental Health Counseling - 3 credits
COUN 664 Internship in Mental Health Counseling II - 6 credits

Program Total: 60 credits

Students in the Mental Health Counseling Program will complete 100 total hours (40 of which are direct service hours) in Practicum in Mental Health Counseling, at a select clinical mental health agency working with clients under the supervision of a licensed mental health clinician. Students also spend time providing mental health counseling services at Alfred University's Child & Family Services Center under the supervision of licensed program faculty.

During Internship in Mental Health Counseling I and Internship in Mental Health Counseling II, students continue to spend time at an approved mental health agency working with clients under the supervision of a licensed mental health clinician. Over the course of a minimum of two internship semesters, students must accumulate at least 600 total hours and 240 direct service hours, distributed equivalently across both semesters.

Annual Assessment Report

Applying

To apply, students should select AU Campus MSEd Counseling as their degree program on the graduate application form. Students do not have to choose their counseling specialty (School Counseling or Mental Health Counseling) until the second semester, as this is when the specialization courses begin.

Students should submit the following to the Graduate Admissions Office:

the completed application form and fee;
three letters of recommendation;
official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate coursework;
scores from the GRE general test if undergraduate GPA is less than a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale
a brief personal statement of your program interest.

In addition, because of the high level of maturity, sensitivity, independence and flexibility necessary in the program, an on-campus interview is required. You'll be contacted for an interview once all application materials have been received.

Apply Today

Financial Support

There are four types of assistantships that graduate students may be interested in:

General graduate assistantships
Grant-based assistantships
Enhanced graduate assistantships
Athletic graduate assistantships

All full-time graduate students in the Division of Counseling & School Psychology are granted a general graduate assistantship, which requires the student to work 5 hours per week each semester for a professor or university division, reducing one’s tuition cost by $3,000.

Student’s may instead apply for one of three other competitive assistantships:

Grant-based assistantship
Enhanced assistantship
Athletic graduate assistantship

Grant-based assistantships are available through the division’s $4.64 million, U.S. Department of Education award for the Rural Mental Health Demonstration Project. This award funds two categories of assistantships:

Social Emotional Learning Graduate Assistantships (as many as four), which are available to any full-time first year counseling and school psychology student; and
Project Assistant, which is available to a select 2nd year School Counseling or Mental Health Counseling Student.

These assistantships provide over $15,000 in tuition reduction in exchange for working 15 hours per week. Other benefits include a stipend of $5,000, access to free training through Peaceful Schools, and up to $2,000 in assistance for professional conference travel. In addition, all school counseling interns receive up to $10,000 in tuition reduction along with a $5,000 stipend.

Enhanced graduate assistantships are found through several university departments, including the Center for Student Involvement, the Pamela J. Bernstein Center for Advising, and the Judson Leadership Center. In exchange for working 15-20 hours per week, these assistantships cover 50% of tuition costs with some providing a stipend. Students may also be interested in an enhanced graduate assistantship with Scholes Library, which provides a $6,000 reduction in tuition in exchange for 10 hours of work per week.

Athletic graduate assistantships are for part-time counseling students and fully cover a maximum of 18 credits of tuition per academic year along with a stipend in exchange for working 20 hours per week as a graduate assistant coach or athletic trainer.

Alfred University’s Master's of Science degree in Mental Health Counseling consists of 60 credit hours of coursework and supervised practicum and internship experiences. As a CACREP accredited program, Alfred’s coursework addresses the eight common core curricular experiences as well as several specialization areas including:

Foundations of mental health counseling
Psychopathology and differential diagnosis
Counseling special populations/evidence-based practices
Mental health assessment
Substance use disorders
Trauma-informed care

The practicum and internship courses, which occur across three semesters of training, provide students with over 700 hours of applied experiences in area community mental health agencies and college and university counseling centers.

Alfred’s mental health counseling program is registered with New York State as a Licensure Qualified Program. Thus, graduates of the program will have completed all of the educational requirements necessary to obtain their limited permit as a Mental Health Counselor. Graduates are eligible to pursue full licensure (LMHC) by accumulating the required post-graduate contact hours and passing the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination.

Graduates can gain meaningful employment in a variety of New York State Office of Mental Health programs, exempt settings, and even as private practitioners, as most of the major insurance companies in New York accept LMHC’s as providers. And, given our CACREP accreditation, graduates have found it easy to gain licensure and employment in other states throughout the country.

American Counseling Association

American Mental Health Counselors Association

New York State Office of the Professions

A Rewarding Career

Nationally, mental health counseling is a rapidly growing profession. The Department of Labor reports that mental health counseling jobs are projected to grow 19% over the next decade, much faster than the average of all professions. This is not surprising as mental health counselors have a skillset that is unique among other human service disciplines - with its holistic approach that emphasizes wellness, diversity competence, development, prevention and the medical model.

Since 2014, Alfred University's mental health counseling graduates have a job completion rate of 96%. In addition, our graduates have a 98% exam pass rate for the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination (NCMHCE), which is the licensure exam in New York and many other states.

Our recent graduates have been hired by: