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Specialization in Child and Adolescent Intervention

Counselors who work with children and adolescents are highly in demand.  Program graduates are poised to meet the need with the Specialization in Child and Adolescent Intervention (CAI).  The CAI specialization provides additional coursework and a specialized internship to develop the student’s understanding of the child’s psyche and its relation to behavior.  Through the study of healthy child development, child and adolescent psychopathology, and the impact of trauma, students gain tools for communicating and intervening with children to promote constructive behaviors. Students learn the origins of defensive patterns that constrain learning, provoke anger or alienation, or result in other destructive behaviors.  Through coursework and the internship, students explore symbolic communications in children and clinical interventions to develop skills for managing aggression and bringing out the best in the children with whom they work.

Required Courses

In addition to the regular counseling curriculum, students in the CAI specialization enroll in:

  • CP 188 Clinical Work with Children. Students take two semesters of CP 188 concurrent with the internship.
  • CP 189 Child and Adolescent Psychopathology
  • PT 143 The Childhood Years and/or
  • PT 144 Adolescence

Electives:

  • CP 193 Symbolic Communication in Children
  • CP 191 Group Work with Children
  • CP 192 The Traumatized Child

Internship

Students also engage in an internship working with children and/or adolescents.  Through BGSP’s Therapy Center, the program offers a School Outreach Program that allows counseling interns to work with underserved children who otherwise would likely not receive therapy.  Students may also propose their own internship setting, with the help of the Field Placement Coordinator.  Students in the CAI specialization receive intensive individual clinical supervision and an additional group supervision focusing on work with children.