Associate in Science Degree

This program is designed to prepare qualified students for a wide variety of community counseling-related employment positions in the urbansuburban region of Greater Bridgeport and surrounding metropolitan areas. Career positions in such fields as counseling, mental health, social services, substance abuse, community outreach, and gerontology. Instruction is cross-disciplinary and is designed for maximum transferability for those wishing to continue their studies.

Outcomes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the range of effective communication and basic counseling strategies/skills necessary to establish a collaborative relationship with the client or patient.
• Apply knowledge of formal and informal assessment practices in order to respond to the needs, desires, and interests of the client.
• Demonstrate knowledge of formal and informal supports available in the community.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the range of participatory planning and outreach techniques associated with the helping professions.
• Demonstrate the ability to match specific supports and interventions to the unique needs of individual clients and recognize the importance of friends, family, and community relationships.
• Demonstrate awareness of the diverse challenges facing clients (e.g. human-rights, legal, administrative, and financial) and be able to identify and use effective advocacy strategies to overcome such challenges.
• Demonstrate knowledge and appropriate application of crisis prevention, intervention and resolution techniques, and be able to match such techniques to particular circumstances and individuals.
• Demonstrate case-management skills with clients including the development of collaborative relationships, assisting with the identification and access to community supports, implementing plans in a collaborative and expeditious manner, promoting an advocacy position, and mobilizing resources and support necessary to assist clients.
• Understand and articulate a systems perspective for the treatment and resolution of individual, family, group, and community human service problems.
• Develop and demonstrate ethical standards and sensibilities.