GWU's Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling Certificate Program
The program offers a collaborative multidisciplinary approach with GWU’s Law School, making it ideal for counselors in private practice, rehabilitation counselors, supervisors, directors of rehabilitation agencies, and counselors seeking additional education. It is offered through GWU’s nationally ranked Rehabilitation Counseling Program (6th according to U.S. News and World Report).
Hear from a student at: http://youtu.be/jn0_Ov6wkMY
The increased demand for national certification and licensure requirements for counselors has led to a proliferation of online academic programs offering either master’s degrees or certification programs (Bollettino & Bruderlein, 2008). The George Washington University continues to remain an innovative pedagogical leader by continuing to develop counseling programs to address gaps and/or new areas of need within the rehabilitation and clinical mental health counseling fields. There is a strong need for counselors to be educated in Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling topics as the current counseling environment increasingly requires the counselor to testify in court. In today’s litigious society counselors are becoming more involved in the legal system (voluntarily or via subpoena) and frequently have no formal training to prepare them for this environment. Research indicates that the majority of graduate students would select to take an online distance education course as part of a MA or PhD program (Sloan Consortium, 2008). The latest data indicates that almost 3.5 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2008 term. Nearly twenty percent of all U.S. higher education students were taking at least one online course during the fall of 2007 (Sloan Consortium, 2008).
The Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling Program consists of four graduate level online distance education courses (12 credit hours) offered via Blackboard: Foundations of Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling I, Foundations of Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling II, Law and the Rehabilitation Counselor and Disability and Case Management. The first course starts during the summer semester and the student takes one course per semester until completing the program the following summer. Curricular requirements of this certificate program provide participants with the additional coursework required by the various state licensing boards to obtain licensure. Each state has its own specific requirements to obtain an LPC or LCPC.
The first GWU Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling (FRC) cohort began the summer of 2010 with 12 students. The demographic breakdown of the initial cohort consisted of 1 student with a Ph.D., 10 students with a master’s degree, and 1 bachelor’s level student; 64.29% Male to 35.71% female, 78.57% Caucasian, 14.29% Hispanic, 7.14% African American and an average age of 44 years old. The first FRC cohort consisted of 11 IARP members or 91.66% of the group several of whom serve in IARP leadership positions. GWU is currently accepting applications for the second FRC cohort that will begin in June of 2011.The lead faculty member for the FRC program is Dr. Scott Beveridge, LCPC, CRC, CDMS, who has experience providing Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling services since 1991, working in both the public and private-for-profit sectors of Rehabilitation Counseling, and serving as a counselor educator. For information on the GWU Forensic Rehabilitation Counseling please visit the FRC web site: http://gsehd.gwu.edu/frc or contact Dr. Beveridge at (202) 994-2473 or beveridg@gwu.edu.
References
Bollettino, V., & Bruderline, C. (2008). Training humanitarian professionals at a distance: testing the feasibility of distance learning with humanitarian professionals. Distance Education, 29(3), 269-287.
Sloan consortium (2008). Staying the course: online education in the United States, 2008.
U.S. News and World Report (2010). The Best Graduate Schools 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2010, from http://www.usnews.com/forms/badges/grad-schools/education
