Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers

Abstract

The accreditation standards outlined in the article are used by the International Association of Counseling Services as the basis for the formal accreditation of college and university counseling programs throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia. They reflect the program elements and practice standards that are deemed essential in a counseling center that provides high‐quality services to students.

Outreach by College Counselors: Increasing Student Attendance at Presentations

“…O utreach programming is an increasingly important activity for college counseling centers (Archer & Cooper, 1998;Guinee & Ness, 2000;Stone & Archer, 1990). In fact, providing outreach interventions is an accreditation standard for college and university counseling centers set by the International Association of Counseling Services (Boyd et al, 2003). Stone and Archer defined outreach as "any organized program, workshop, media effort, class, or systematic attempt to provide psychological education-includes systematic attempts to modify the campus environment" (p. 557).…”

Student volunteers perspectives on roles/functions of university counseling centers in Taiwan

“…This finding mirrored previous literature. UCPs played other roles aside from the counseling/therapeutic roles; additional functions of UCC included prevention, promotion, and psycho-education (Archer and Cooper, 1998;Boyd et al, 2003;Hsu, 2005;Lin et al, 2015). Participants believed that most students have little knowledge about the counseling profession, so they seldom utilized UCC services.…”

“…UCCs also train interns and professionals and implement research and administration (Archer and Cooper, 1998;Stone and Archer, 1990). Boyd et al (2003) highlighted three roles of UCPs. The most prominent role is to provide counseling and/or psychotherapy to students who are experiencing personal adjustment, vocational, developmental and/or psychological problems requiring professional attention.…”

Mandated Disciplinary Counseling on Campus: Problems and Possibilities

“…The IACS guidelines (as cited in Boyd et al, 2003) stipulate that counseling services must maintain an image of administrative neutrality on the campus and therefore implicate that, if counseling staff are involved in treatment readiness activities, it should be a behind-the-scenes role.…”