Bradley now offers an online counseling program with master’s degrees in clinical mental health counseling and professional school counseling. The Master of Arts in Counseling program aims to prepare professional counselors to work with a diverse population of clients in a variety of educational and community settings.
Carlos Del Rio, director of the online counseling program. He said the online delivery of the program offers the exact same curriculum that is currently offered to campus-based students.
“My goal is to bring the academic excellence that distinguishes Bradley to students seeking a quality graduate education in counseling wherever they live,” he said.
In addition to clinical mental health counseling and professional school counseling, Del Rio mentioned other possible certifications for the future, which include addiction counseling, career counseling, couples and family therapy counseling and any other counseling specialty that represents a division of the American Counseling Association. Currently, there are 20 professional divisions that represent the profession of counseling.
“The purpose has been to offer a quality of education that distinguishes Bradley to students regardless of their location,” Del Rio said.
According to Del Rio, the federal Department of Education issued a regulation in 2010 requiring all accredited institutions of higher education in the U.S. to seek for state authorization to offer their programs via distance learning technologies.
Bradley made an effort to gain authorization from all states in the country prior to launching its counseling program online. According to Del Rio, 47 states currently have authorization.
“Every state ensures in its own terms that any university offering academic degree programs via distance learning technologies satisfies the program integrity requisite; this includes proof of accreditation and payment of fees,” Del Rio said. “As a result, some states may be cost prohibitive to grant their authorizations. Yet Bradley has been committed to make its program integrity available to all interested students regardless of where they live.”
Del Rio said he believes the online counseling will be beneficial for any student wishing to pursue it.
“Our program is competitive because it is CACREP (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs) accredited,” Del Rio said. “We also have been authorized by the Higher Learning Commission to offer our academic programs via distance learning technologies. Our academic concentrations have in counseling have a great demand in our society – across the states. And our faculty are very good at what they do.”
The online degrees will also offer Bradley’s neurocounseling and brain-based interventions courses as electives. The ACA approved the establishment of the Neurocounseling Interest Network this year, and Bradley’s Lori Ann Russell Chapin, the dean of the College of Education and Health Sciences, is its national chair, Del Rio said.
Del Rio said he is very confident in the success this program will bring to students.
“Students who come to study counseling at Bradley commence as learners,” Del Rio said. “But they leave Bradley as competent therapists who will meet the personal and developmental needs of the people who will come seeking services from them. Our program is experiential and it ensures a professional and personal transformation in each of our students.”
