Associate in Science Degree

This program is designed to prepare qualified students for a wide variety of community counseling-related employment positions in the urban-suburban 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.