Faculty members in the WNMU Counseling Program recently presented at the Rocky Mountain Association for Counselor Education and Supervision on their efforts to promote competencies in providing remote mental health services. The Counseling Program has a nationally registered telemental health training program that all counseling students are required to complete.
“Students who have completed the program meet the training requirement necessary to becoming a Board Certified Telemental Health Provider,” said Associate Professor Benjamin Jenkins. “Ours is the only counselor preparation program in the nation to have such a requirement.”
Through telemental health counseling, counselors and clients can meet remotely with the aid of technology, such as video conferencing. This kind of counseling is especially needed in rural areas, said Assistant Professor William Lane, who leads the Counseling Program. “Many rural and frontier communities have limited access to licensed counseling professionals,” explained Lane. “Telemental health counseling allows rural clients access to trained professionals who live in other areas of the state or even country. If a client goes on vacation or a trip out of town, they don’t have to miss out on their regular counseling services. They can open up a laptop from their Airbnb and connect with their counselor.”
According to Lane, who developed the program, students take the telemental health counseling class synchronously with the basic counseling skills class. In the class, said Lane, “Students learn the ethics of telemental health counseling, which include standards such as verifying the client’s identity at every contact. Students learn crisis management when it comes to telemental health, which includes knowing the emergency services local to the client. Students learn about different technology platforms and best practice when it comes to using those technologies. Students also learn about HIPAA regulations and how they govern telemental health counseling practice.”
The telemental health training is also available as continuing education for current practitioners, said Jenkins.
Lane said that developing the telemental health curriculum was part of a broader plan to connect graduate students in counseling with clients in need of their services. “I have the vision and a strategic plan in place to develop a counseling clinic where our WNMU masters-level counseling students provide low-cost counseling services to rural and frontier communities in New Mexico that otherwise wouldn’t have accessibility to services,” said Lane. “Counseling ethics mandate that counselors are competent in the modalities of counseling they provide, so I knew our students needed to be competent in telemental health counseling before we could develop a clinic at which they could provide services.”
Lane added, “Now that our students are getting this training and learning these competencies, we can start developing a masters-level counseling student telemental health counseling clinic to help improve the mental health of rural and frontier New Mexico.”