WINGATE — Strengthening a department that already includes master’s programs in public health and social work, Wingate is planning to offer a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, with the first cohort expected to begin their coursework in 2025. The University received program approval from accrediting body the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges last week.
The program can’t be established soon enough. About one in five Americans suffers from mental illness, but over one-third of the country has a shortage of mental-health counselors. Covid-19 only exacerbated a growing problem.
“Since Covid, the need for mental-health counseling has just boomed,” says Dr. Jennifer Jordan, who has been tapped to lead the program. “The number of suicides has skyrocketed.”
Jordan started at Wingate on July 1 after 16 years leading a similar program at Winthrop University. She has 26 total years of teaching experience.
Jordan says that the in-person, 60-hour, two-year program will be heavy on experiential learning. She adds that she’s likely to add a pro bono clinic, in order to put students into a clinical setting early in the program and continue the Wingate spirit of service to the surrounding community.
Jordan says the program will also be generalist in nature, and students don’t need a specific bachelor’s degree to be admitted. People who are a natural fit for the profession are “pretty self-aware, pretty healthy people who are interested in helping others,” she says.
The job prospects for graduates are excellent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in the field is expected to grow 18 percent between 2022 and 2032, compared with a 3 percent rate for all occupations. Median annual pay was $53,710 in 2023.
Jordan says Wingate’s program will be “trauma-informed.” She adds that medical views on trauma and its impact on mental health have changed over the years.
“When I was in school, trauma was believed to be big incidents, like an accident or being in a war,” she says. “What we know now is that trauma is so much more. Trauma is a lot of things, like relationship ruptures. They can happen really early and have devastating effects on a person’s emotional well-being.”
Jordan’s own interest in mental-health counseling grew out of such situations. The daughter of a career military man, Jordan moved around a lot with her family growing up. “I believe that the constant moving and the need to end so many relationships and start over unknowingly created a pattern of trauma for me, marked by numerous relational ruptures,” she says. “And it made me want to help others experiencing the same thing.”
Armed with a general desire to help others, Jordan entered a master’s program at Nicholls State University in Louisiana and eventually a doctoral program at Mississippi State University, where, as a graduate assistant, she realized she worked well with master’s students. She’s been in academia ever since, working at Northern Colorado, Clemson, Youngstown State and finally Winthrop.
She found running counseling clinics especially rewarding, and she sees one eventually being a big part of the Wingate program. Jordan envisions putting students into a clinical setting early, with instructors observing via camera and prompting the students, when necessary, via electronic tablet. “To me, that builds solid counselors,” she says. “They build up a lot of confidence. And then they slowly pull away from that and feel empowered to do it on their own.”
Jordan strongly believes that building meaningful relationships is essential and emphasizes creating a diverse, supportive and empowering community where students feel valued and connected. She was also pleased to discover that the program will be housed alongside the Master of Social Work program, which began this semester. Many clinical mental health counseling programs are part of their universities’ schools of education.
