Mission & Objectives

The MACC program goals are informed by the Seminary and MACC-CMH mission statements and anchored in the CACREP common core curriculum for counseling programs.

1. Professional Identity. We expect that students will demonstrate a professional counselor identity with understanding of the roles and functions of professional counselors and an ongoing commitment to professional, interpersonal, and spiritual growth.
2. Knowledge and skills for competent counseling practice. We expect that students will demonstrate knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary for competent counseling practice. This includes:
   1. Understanding of the nature and needs of persons at all developmental levels, including theories of wellness, human development, and spiritual formation over the lifespan. (Human Growth and Development).
   2. Basic professional dispositions necessary for effective counseling. Students should be aware of self and others, teachable, ethical, multiculturally sensitive, and relationally adept. (Professional Dispositions)
   3. Understanding of the primary theoretical orientations and evidence-based interventions shaping the counseling field today. (Theory and Interventions)
   4. Skills necessary for clinical mental health counseling, including basic interviewing and observation skills, differential diagnosis and treatment planning, career assessment, forming and conducting groups, assessment of suicide risk, and the selection and administration of tests appropriate to counseling. (Diagnosis, Assessment, and Helping Skills)
   5. Understanding of research and program evaluation methodology and skills and their application in counseling contexts. (Research and Program Evaluation).
3. Respect for human diversity within a multicultural perspective. We expect that students will demonstrate humility, sensitivity, and respect for human diversity within a multicultural perspective, grounded in a Christian theological understanding that humanity created in the Imago Dei gives value and dignity to all people. This includes:
   1. Understanding, sensitivity and respect of persons pertaining to culture, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, faith, values, beliefs and other contextual factors (Social and Cultural Diversity).
   2. Understanding how issues of discrimination, racism, oppression, sexism, ableism, power and privilege impact the practice of professional counseling, including the counselor’s role in promoting justice in a variety of human domains and reducing intentional and unintentional oppression and discrimination (Advocacy).
   3. Awareness of self as a person of culture and how this impacts others (Cultural self-awareness).
4. Adherence to ethical and legal standards of the profession. We expect that students will demonstrate adherence to ethical and legal standards of the counseling profession.
5. Christian leadership and theological integration. We expect that students will develop a personal, theologically integrated theoretical model that facilitates counseling diverse populations and demonstrates advocacy for Christian leadership in the professional counseling community.