The Department of Counseling and Addiction Studies’ Counseling Clinic at Detroit Mercy has incorporated a program that provides free counseling to Detroit residents, with more than 100 locals already utilizing this feature.
According to Dr. Kelli Anderson, Director of Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program, the focal point of this program is to provide pro-bono counseling from enrolled graduate students within the program to individuals in the metro Detroit community who are struggling and may not be able to seek out and fund these services themselves.
The counseling sessions, being conducted by graduate students, are a keystone of this program.
“Giving back to the community and involving our students in this form of community engagement is a big focus of our department,” Dr. Anderson added. “They get to see so many different types of people from backgrounds they wouldn’t have necessarily seen where(ever) they end up working at.”
This important feature grants the graduate students a more multicultural perspective, essential to their line of work and allows them to say, “this person might be from a totally different background than I’m familiar with, but I’m going to use this opportunity to learn from them,” Dr. Anderson explained.
The high-level training also works to encourage the students to continue to give back to their communities well after they have graduated.
“This program is so important, especially nowadays, having this (community engagement) modeled to them allows students going into this workforce to know that there are things or services they can do or provide to continue to give back to their community,” Dr. Anderson explained.
Working hand-in-hand with several different community mental health organizations in the area, the majority of individuals receiving free counseling are acquired through referrals. This generally occurs when individuals seek therapy or counseling from an outside organization, but cannot financially afford it, so the organization then refers these individuals to Detroit Mercy.
The program also maintains a connection to the Wayne County Courts. Individuals who are mandated to attend a certain amount of court ordered counseling sessions may undergo their counseling through this program as well.
It is important to mention though that anyone is more than welcome to procure the department’s free counseling, regardless of a referral from an outside organization.
The department has received an abundance of feedback from community members, many still believing that offering free counseling is just too good to be true.
“Some people won’t even know we exist and will say things like, ‘there’s free counseling at Detroit Mercy, that’s so cool,’” Dr. Anderson added, “I think that just people knowing there’s a resource here is a really cool opportunity that they don’t always know exists for them.”
This is particularly the case for many individuals dealing with mental health issues or addiction, who also face economic hardships because they believe there are no resources available to support them as they go through things.
“Many people feel hopeless and think, ‘Well I’m out of luck, I can never afford therapy,’ and to find out that there are free resources available to help them is a huge relief,” Dr. Anderson stated.
With all this being said, counseling services are exclusively available to non-students at the university due to it being provided by graduate students within the department’s program.
Students seeking counseling may access services at the school’s Wellness Center located at Detroit Mercy’s McNicholas campus.
