Go ahead and get started then.
So for those of you who don't know about Divine Mercy University, we were born as a Catholic graduate school of psychology and counseling founded in 1999.
And back then, our name was the Institute for the Psychological Sciences.
We've dedicated to the scientific study of psychology with a Catholic understanding of the person, marriage, and the family.
The university offers a doctoral or a PsyD degree in clinical psychology, a doctoral PhD degree in counselor education and supervision, which is what we're here to talk about today, a master of science degree in psychology, and a master of science in counseling, and then we have a certificate in spiritual direction.
Won't go through all the vision and mission, but the the part that's kind of important on the mission side, the university provides students an appropriate academic and educational environment that supports the integration of science, scholarship, and a Catholic Christian understanding of the person through a rigorous, critical, and objective search for a truth.
It assists the students intellectually, humanly, and professionally as they prepare themselves to respond to their location as a mental health professionals or as men and women helping professions.
The university's mission also involves dialogue with its integrative approach of practitioners, scholars, and cultural leaders nationally and internationally.
And in case you're wondering, we run about 20% international student wise.
So as I mentioned, we're here to talk about the PhD in counselor education supervision program.
It's a 90 credit doctoral program that builds on DMU's master's in counseling, clinical mental health health counseling program as a foundation incorporates 30 credits from the program for the 90 credit doctoral program.
Students with graduate degrees in counseling or related fields from accredited institutions can transfer up to 30 credits into the t PhD program depending on courses taken in their prior graduate programs.
The doctoral program requires an additional sixty credit hours of coursework addressing professional roles in five areas, counseling, supervision, teaching, research and scholarship, and leadership and advocacy.
Additionally, students are required to complete internship experiences in advanced counseling, supervision, teaching, and a doctoral dissertation of original research.
Students are also required to travel to complete three extended weekend residencies in the duration of the program.
The residencies are designed as working residencies where students gather to encourage each other, practice skills they are learning, and focus on the completion of their dissertations.
The PhD in counter education and supervision program and curriculum is aligned with premier industry programmatic standards, the council for accreditation and counseling and related educational programs, CACREP, a specialized accrediting body recognized by the Council for Education Accreditation, CHIA, and grants accreditation for master's and doctoral programs and professional counseling.
So let's talk about a little bit about the program requirements.
As I mentioned, you'll be able to transfer in 30 credits from your master's degree, and then that would leave 60 credits.
Of those 60 credits, seven core content courses.
There's three courses in internships.
There's two courses in integration.
There's three courses in research, and there's 17 credits in dissertation research and writing.
There is a degree time limit to the program.
The program was designed to to go about two and a half years.
You do have up to seven calendar years from a date of admission, to finish your degree.
The date of admission doesn't start until your your first day of class, just so you know.
The academic year comprises of a fall semester, spring semester, and a summer semester.
Doctoral students must remain continuously enrolled until they have completed all program requirements, including dissertation.
There is thing what we have called a leave of absence.
We all know that things happen in life.
So some people weird out a little bit about the continuous enrollment.
Being continuously enrolled is fine even if you're on an LOA.
So, again, the leave of absence could happen if you need it.
A doctoral dissertation must be completed and successfully co defended.
This requires a minimum of twelve credit hours.
The doctoral dissertation takes the form of an independent and original research project in the field of counselor education.
The dissertation topic is developed in close consultation with the student's dissertation chair and the dissertation committee.
The student is supported throughout by an intern international I'm sorry, intentional process of scaffolding skills needed to be successful in the research and writing of the dissertation.
This includes the support of dissertation chair, research design, and methodology courses, library resources, and three residencies that support the skills and work required for the completion of the dissertation.
The dissertation proposal must be approved by the student's dissertation committee.
The dissertation is expected to meet scholarly standards and be, excuse me, publishable quality.
Once students have their dissertation chair appointed, they must be continuously enrolled and registered for CES eight ninety nine until all dissertation requirements are completed, or we will be considered withdrawn from the program.
To be successfully completed, the written dissertation must be approved by the dissertation committee and successfully dependent defended orally before the dissertation committee.
So this kinda worries some folks sometimes.
As it's mentioned here, there is a dissertation committee, a dissertation chair.
You also have an academic adviser, and you also have, obviously, your professors and the program director.
The one thing that I think is truly important to understand about DMU and your dissertation, in this program, as I mentioned earlier, the idea is to get you to get to your dissertation topic earlier than later and then use this what they said earlier, scaffolding skills.
So you're gonna learn about your dissertation while you're doing research, while you're in school so that you come don't come to the end of the program, and now you have to put this big dissertation together.
The idea is to get it going early on and work on it as you go through the program with the assistance of the chair and the committee.
Also mentioned was our residencies.
There's three extended weekend residencies, three or four days.
And if it's a four day, you come in on Wednesday and you leave Sunday afternoon.
The three day is Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon depending on the residency.
While you're there, it's designed to work to help you as a working residency where students gather, encourage each other, practice skills they are learning, and focus on the completion of their dissertations.
Participation in entire residency is mandatory for all students.
System residency includes group activities and missing parts would be disruptive for the overall learning environment.
Intending attending excuse me.
Attending the entire time is obligatory to receive credit for the residency.
If a student is not able to participate in a resident residency, they can attend the next scheduled residency.
The student will receive an incomplete for the course connected with the residency until the residency is completed successfully.
So, again, there's folks you know, life get gets in the way.
Sometimes they need to to find another residency to attend, and, you know, we've made sure that that's an accommodation.
Obviously, that's all worked out with the program and the program director.
The first residency during the first course in the program and then the same term each following year for students in the program full time.
The first one is a CES seven forty advanced seminar and professional identity, legal and ethical issues in CES.
That is the three day residency, and it's in the fourth week of your first term.
The CES seven ninety one internship two supervision is a four day residency in week eight of what would be your second year.
And then the CES eight ninety nine dissertation research and writing five is a four day residency in week three.
I'm sorry.
In week one of year three.
Year three being made up of a half a year assuming that you continue through the program full time.
So if this is something you're looking at and you're interested in, you would need to put in an application.
There's two parts to the application, and the process is as follows, a master's degree in counseling or related mental health field from an institution accredited by an agency recognized by the US Department of Education.
Sometimes we do have international students, and that's something that we'll talk about a little separately.
Preference will be given to advocates who are professionally credentialed in mental health occupation, clinical or school counseling, marriage and family therapy, social work psychology, etcetera.
Those accepted without such credentials would need to take the necessary extra courses and internships for those credentials before graduating from the PhD in CES.
You need a graduate degree cumulative GPA of four or I'm sorry, three point o on a scale of four point o, complete the application process, which includes completed application for admissions document.
So I mentioned a minute ago, this is a two step process.
That's step one.
There's a form on the, on our website.
You go on there, fill out all the information, and pay the application fee.
That would be the initial part of the application.
After you've completed the application for admissions document, you would need to then send get one recommendation form from an academic reference.
Now if you do not have an academic reference, maybe some of you have been out for a while.
I've had folks that have been out as long as thirty years, and it would be hard for them to track down their their academic references.
So we do find other ways to to get you taken care of there.
That's just something we'll work on with you and the program director.
You would need to submit an official transcript from all post secondary institutions even if a degree was not awarded, so please make sure that you you keep that in mind.
Submission of essays is noted in application for admissions document and two video clips of clinical work and a teaching presentation minimum of twenty minutes each.
And as you see there, you can role play those if you would like, but one needs to be on your clinical work, and then the other one needs to be on teaching and or presentation.
And, again, both can be role played.
If you have video, especially of your clinical work of twenty minutes or more and you wanna provide that, as long as it meets HIPAA and FERPA requirements, you can go ahead and do that.
Then you would also need a, current curriculum vitae or resume.
There's an $55 application fee.
And as you can see there, if you got your pens and papers ready, there is a waiver code for that application fee, and that code is CCMMP1999.
I think you'll be available for two video conference interviews after submission of all application materials.
One is actually an interview with me, and, actually, I do that before you finish all your materials.
And then the second one is a group interview where three to four, candidates meet with the program director and a professor, and you go through a group interview together.
And it's it's a nice environment because you you're not getting hit by everybody by yourself.
It's a it's a clear collegial, collaborative interview, and it allows you to kinda listen to others and their take on what they're doing and what they're looking to do with the program and then what they're gonna do with it when they graduate.
And sometimes I've been told that that helps you when you're you're in the middle of of trying to formulate your own answers.
So if you're an international application, Afghan I'm sorry.
We can discuss in a separate meeting, but you would need to do certain things in order to to be accepted.
If you're looking to figure out how to fund your education, there are scholarships and tuition funding options.
Mhmm.
We have tuition reduction agreements where we've signed many different organizations, universities through articulation agreements, those kind of things.
The church we've worked with serve a bunch of diocese.
There's a ton of of businesses that have signed tuition reduction agreements.
If you are a focus focus seek student before a mission, there's one of those scholarships.
You'll see the Newman School scholarship, the Catholic, Campus Ministry Association scholarships.
There's obviously self funding options.
We even have a matching scholarship for, folks if you, get somebody to donate on your behalf.
And, obviously, DMU has a ton of scholarships ourselves.
And then if you were in the military or associated with a dependent or a spouse in the military, we accept pretty much all the military chapters including the yellow ribbon program.
For for more information on scholarships, you can go to the divinemercy.edu and go to the financial aid scholarship section, and it'll list all the scholarships and what you would need to do to, get one of those scholarships or apply for the scholarship.
You can apply for up to three.
Usually, we award two.
So, hopefully, you guys can see yourselves, doing something in in the scholarship area.
As an example, Divine Mercy University is a nonprofit university, and our goal is not to go out and make, you know, millions of dollars, is to educate and graduate the best scholars that we can send out into the, you know, mental health community.
Last year, we gave away 2,300,000 in scholarships, and, that's pretty substantial, for a small university.
If you do go online and you're looking to obtain a loan, you would need to fill out your FAFSA if you're going for a government loan, and you would need our school code.
And as you can see it down there in the left hand in the red, it the code is G38724.
So keep that in mind if you're if you're looking for loans.
Again, as I mentioned, we have several scholarships options, at DMU.
There's an early admission scholarship for, CES.
It's, $2,000.
And and we're in the early scholarship period right now.
We just finished our, period for the fall.
We may take a few more applications.
I'm not sure yet.
But, right now, we're really looking at January, and this is where the early scholars early admit scholarship would work.
As I mentioned earlier, we have students from Newman Schools, merit based scholarships, grant and aid scholarships, and, you know, you can there's you have to go online and read the rest of them.
There's a ton of them.
Alright.
And, again, my name is Tom Brooks.
That's me.
And, I will go ahead and open up the floor.
I see we got one chat, but if you're, if you have questions, please let me know.
Come into the chat or raise your hand.
Okay.
Well, Susan, hello.
Alright.
Let me see.
I know there's a way to let you guys all chat.
So, alright, what questions do we have, folks?
Raise your hand or hit me in the chat.
Do we need to be accepted to the program first before applying for a scholarship?
No.
Thank you for the question, Crystal.
So the the process is really kinda simple.
You fill out the first part of the application, which is what I mentioned earlier, and that kind of, alerts the rest of the university that you have now applied, and they will start working with you.
So financial aid will reach out to you.
A student success, the registrar, a number of folks will work with you from everything from, scholarships, grants, you know, funding, those kind of things, the onboarding process like orientation and those kind of things, and then, you know, obviously, finishing up with the group interview and all that.
You're not accepted into the program until you go until all of your material is, is completed, and then you go through the group interview with the program.
By then, you should have already worked out most, if not all, of your financial aid needs.
So, hopefully, that helps.
Will a master in education qualify?
Not unless it's a clinical, school counselor or something like that, but a master in education as a teacher?
No.
Unfortunately, I apologize.
It does not.
The, I have a master's in education.
What additional classes would I need?
Basically, this is a counseling program degree.
So you would actually need a degree, a master's in counseling, and or at least to get through, you know, the clinical work and whatever other courses, and then, you know, you have to get licensed.
Either have to be provisionally licensed or fully licensed.
So you definitely would need to put in a little bit of work.
Does your postgraduate degree have to be from a K prep program?
If it's a counseling degree, what I would tell you is you would need to submit your program.
As I mentioned earlier, your transcripts are part of that.
So what would happen is the program and the and the registrar would evaluate your your transcripts, and then we would have to get back with you on that one.
How many people are in each admissions cohort?
This these classes are small.
We only have two starts a year.
One is in August, which our next one is August this August '25, and then we have one in January.
The most we'll ever take is probably 15 students right now.
We're kinda staying around 12 or 13.
So they're pretty small cohorts.
They're not meant to be big.
This is a program that there's a lot of interaction with the faculty and the the students, and, you know, we want it that way.
We want to be able to for every student to be able to have access to their professors, the chair, everybody else.
So we do keep the cohorts cohorts small, and, we probably will never move off of that.
I have a master's degree in pastoral counseling, which is not CACREP.
Again, I think what you'd have to do is send that over to us and let us take a look at it.
But if it doesn't lead to licensure as a licensed counselor, I don't know that it would it would pass, but if you're a counselor and you're working and you're licensed, then absolutely send over the, the transcripts, and we'll go from there.
Alright.
First, I appreciate everybody asking me the questions.
Thank you.
I'll give you guys another minute or two.
Any other questions, please, is a good time to ask.
It's a good group.
Appreciate the questions.
Anybody else?
Okay.
So, I like to to learn a little bit about you guys, and I know that there's not a lot of speaking on this from you, but I am curious.
I always wonder who's the furthest away from Virginia.
So, we're located in Sterling, Virginia.
And, you know, for any of you that don't know where that's at, we're pretty close to Dulles Airport.
Most people know that.
I'm curious who thinks they're the furthest away from Virginia.
Anybody outside of the country?
If so, please just raise your hand or let me know.
And if not, we go to Hawaii and Alaska, and then we work in from there.
Anybody else?
Alright.
Nobody else.
El Paso, Texas.
We have a lot of folks from El Paso.
Are people here's a question.
Are people who are employed full time able to complete the program?
That's a really good question.
The the architects of the program are all from the, world of KCREP.
They have built counseling programs, that have been KCREP approved.
Several of our folks, including our dean and program director, have served in K CREP committees and different areas, within K CREP.
So we're pretty knowledgeable of K CREP and, what goes on there.
And I'm I'm giving you a long winded answer because it's kind of all relevant.
The idea in this program is that you're all, you know, licensed counselors working professionally.
You have odd hours.
You see clients morning, noon, night, in some cases.
So the program was really designed for you to complete as a full time student in two and a half years, and that's including your dissertation.
And it's designed so that it doesn't interrupt your work.
Meaning, you know, you have a life, you're able to do your work, and then this program is is on top of that.
One question I get during the interview process is, you know, how many hours a week do I have to dedicate to this?
And what I'll tell you is it's a, it's a, individual thing.
Some folks take longer to research, to write.
Some folks can breeze through that.
Some folks have, you know, have a need to spend extra time learning new things in terms of skill sets, those kind of things.
What I would tell you is this.
You're already in the profession.
You're already working for the most part, anyway.
Some of you are are not counselors, it seems.
But for those that are out there as licensed counselors, you're already doing the work.
This is skills enhancement.
This is the addition of new knowledge.
And, ideally, you're not giving up anything, you know, your personal life, your, work life, those kind of things with the exception of of the understanding that you have at least, obviously, have schoolwork to do.
So, you should be able to complete this if you dedicate your time to it and, not have it interfere with the other parts of your life for the most part.
So hopefully, that answered that question.
I see, I saw El Paso, Texas.
Do you have to be a member of the Catholic church?
Absolutely not.
We have students from all different types of of, walks of life.
And I would say that in this program, we probably, 25, 30% that are not Catholic.
So I see Minnesota in there.
Christian, welcome.
So far, you're you're the farthest out.
Is the poke program CACREP accredited?
So currently, it is not.
It's a brand new add on program, and what'll happen is, we will once the first graduating class happens, we will submit for, CACREP accreditation.
Again, we built this through the K CREP standards.
Our master's program was given a full, you know, accreditation allotment, and we really don't feel anything other than we'll be successful when we we submit this.
And what that means is every class graduating from the first one through will end up, being, married to the K CREB, accreditation through the program.
Of course, in the first class, it's gonna be a little bit retroactive.
So, we will get we will submit for a K CREP accreditation, and, obviously, we have to get approved.
I can't guarantee that.
But, again, I I think based on our our our leadership, in the program, their affiliation with the the world of K CREP, I I feel pretty confident we'll do fine.
Christian, thanks.
Nice to hear.
Late to the party.
Was there a question regarding transfer credits?
I received MS in counseling from DMU, MA in pastoral ministry, UST, University of Saint Thomas.
Christian, you got a lot going on there.
So what I would tell you is, there may be an option above the 30 credits that you're bringing in from the master's program, but that's something you'd have to submit your your transcripts from these other areas to the program and to the registrar for evaluation to see what, if any course other courses would be added to the program or to your transfer credits.
I just I apologize.
Alright.
Anybody else?
Any other questions?
So far, it looks like Minnesota is the farthest away from us.
So congrats, Christian.
Alright.
If we have no other questions, I'll go ahead and let everybody go.
Thank you for attending the session tonight.
I look forward to talking to several of you over the next several days.
As you can see from my below, my email address is tbrooks@divinemercy.edu.
My direct line is (703) 416-1161.
And you can also go on the website, go under the, academic section of the website, find the, PhD in counselor education supervision program, and you'll see, all my other contact information down there, including my Calendly, which you can go ahead and set up a time that's convenient for you, and I to speak as we move forward.
So, again, thank you all.
Appreciate your time on the on the on the webinar tonight, and I look forward to talking to you guys soon.
Have a good night.