Admission Requirements

College Eligibility

• Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or equivalent; OR
• Academic and Career Entrance (ACE) Certificate; OR
• General Educational Development (GED); OR
• Mature Student status (19 years of age or older and without a high school diploma at the start of the program).

Call the Admissions Office at 1 (800) 267-2577 for more details. Academic prerequisites for this program may be obtained free of charge through Academic Upgrading.

Application Process
Program intake – Apply to this program by visiting our Registration page. If you are entering into this program as a mature student please attach your resume when submitting your registration information online.

Courses

Semester 1 
Study Skills Strategies
Crisis Management
Conflict Resolution
Communication Strategies
Writing Reports and Proposals
Self-Leadership

Semester 2
Introduction to Professional Counselling
Stages and Skills of Counselling
Assessing Client Needs
Defining Strategies and Selecting Interventions
Termination and Follow-Up
Research Skills Development
Critical Thinking

Semester 3 
Introduction to Addictions Treatment
Biological Perspectives of Addiction
Addiction Assessment and Intervention
Social Aspects of Addiction
Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Issues
Addiction and Public Policy
Stress Management

Every attempt is made to ensure the accuracy of information provided on our website. The College reserves the right to modify any course, program, curriculum, fee, timetable, or campus location at any time.

Register for this course.

Course Descriptions

Semester 1 
Study Skills Strategies
This course will enable students to assess their current study skills and plan for improvement. Students will practice time-management techniques for successful studying. Students will learn to develop powerful reading skills and practice memory techniques to enhance ability to learn and improve test performance. This course will also help students to develop specific study skills for mathematics and related subjects and implement an action plan to improve them.

Crisis Management
This course on crisis management offers students the basics in identifying, preventing, and controlling crisis situations. Crisis management basics, from preparation to training and compliance are discussed, as are various stages of a crisis, and the need to establish a crisis management team. Clearly identifying the roles and functions of each crisis management team member is essential for the ultimate success of contingency planning, which is also discussed.

Conflict Resolution
In this course students will learn how to recognize how their own attitudes and actions impact others, effective techniques for dealing with difficult people, strategies for dealing with anger, and how to cope with the difficult people and situations that we will inevitably encounter in our everyday lives.

Communication Strategies
This course will enable students to identify common communication problems and develop skills to ask questions. Students will learn what their non-verbal messages are saying and develop skills in listening actively and empathetically to others. Upon completion of this course students should have an enhanced ability to handle difficult situations and communicate assertively.

Writing Reports and Proposals
In this course students will learn four stages of report writing, and nine tips for effective writing that will help them create materials that are engaging, understandable, and most important, get read. In addition, students will learn about using persuasive language to write effective proposals.

Self-Leadership
Participants of this one day course will develop the four pillars of self-leadership, to make meaningful, empowered choices while taking action. Training sessions include using techniques for adjusting to change, cultivating optimism, and developing good habits.

Semester 2
Introduction to Professional Counselling
In this course, we introduce a number of concepts and conditions that are fundamental to the counseling process. In so doing, we provide a structure for the remainder of the book. Counseling must be viewed within a context. The factors that contribute to that context include philosophy, current theoretical premises, and culture— in other words, the social milieu. That milieu changes as a society changes. And, of course, it changes when one moves from one society or culture to another. In addition, we address helper qualities that are universal, crossing cultures and time. Our ultimate objective is to help you, the student, begin to identify yourself within these parameters and to do some introspection regarding how your personal qualities match those of the professional counselor.

Stages and Skills of Counselling
The overall objective of this course is to present the structure of the counseling process and how that structure helps you determine what the counselor should be doing. The beginning point of counseling is a time when you and your client must decide, both independently and mutually, whether this particular pairing of persons and personalities offers the potential for growth and change. Beyond that decision, you must reach agreement on what the problem is; how counseling might assist in changing problematic circumstances; what counseling activities would help produce that change; and, finally, when the helping effort should conclude. This course examines this process from the client’s perspective, which will be different from your own.

The second part of this course examines the first of the five stages in the counseling process: establishing rapport and a positive therapeutic relationship. Counselor qualities and behaviors and cliequalities and input that are associated with therapeutic relationships are discussed. The increased likelihood that counseling will be a multicultural experience is recognized as an important factor in forming the relationship. This course addresses relationship issues that will likely be part of that multicultural counseling experience, including the counselor’s responsibility for the client’s cultural identity and sensitivity as well as his or her own.

Assessing Client Needs
Students will examine the process by which the counselor and client can work collaboratively to define what that desirable outcome might or will be. Students will also examine the first of the five stages in the counseling process: establishing rapport and a positive therapeutic relationship. Counselor qualities and behaviors and clienqualities and input that are associated with therapeutic relationships are discussed. The increased likelihood that counseling will be a multicultural experience is recognized as an important factor in forming the relationship. This course addresses relationship issues that will likely be part of that multicultural counseling experience, including the counselor’s responsibility for the client’s cultural identity and sensitivity as well as his or her own.

Defining Strategies and Selecting Interventions
In this course, we examine the process by which counselors can assess the client’s presenting problems. That process involves the collection of information relevant to problem definition, conceptualization of that information into a cogent picture of the client in his or her world, and consideration of client resources. Cultural factors that affect client perceptions of their world and counselor perceptions of client problems are introduced. Clinical assessment in counseling may occur at an in- take interview prior to assignment to a counselor. Or it may occur during the assigned counselor’s sessions with the client. When it occurs prior to counselor assignment, it typically includes paper- and- pencil assessment instruments in addition to information gathering in the interview( s).

There are two approaches to clinical assessment: the psych diagnostic method and the psychometric method. In this course, we shall examine the psych diagnostic approach, which has as its purpose the evaluation of client problems and contextual conditions in order to determine what type of counseling is needed, what types of interventions should be used, and how counseling is likely to progress.

Termination and Follow-Up
Termination, the fifth and final stage of counseling, is the transition from assisted functioning to counseling- free functioning by the client. In this course, we discuss the dynamics that affect this transition, the counselor’s role and responsibilities in seeing that this transition occurs, and the occasional necessity to make client referrals to other mental health professionals. It is important to keep in mind through each of the counseling stages that the ultimate goals of any counseling relationship are success and termination. How this is accomplished is the focus of this course.

Research Skills Development
This course introduces students to several different tools so that they can become a stronger researcher and can create proposals, reports, or simply find good information and review it. Students will start by learning basic research skills techniques like reading, memory recall, note-taking, and planning. Participants also learn about different kinds of outlines, and how to move to writing, editing, and polishing the final work while sharing how to use different sources such as libraries, journals, and the Internet.

Critical Thinking
This course provides an introduction to critical thinking, informal logic, and a small amount of formal logic. Its purpose is to provide you with the basic tools of analytical reasoning, which will give students a distinctive edge in a wide variety of careers and courses of study. The course touches upon a wide range of reasoning skills, from verbal argument analysis to formal logic, visual and statistical reasoning, scientific methodology, and creative thinking. Mastering these skills will help you become a more perceptive reader and listener, a more persuasive writer and presenter, and a more effective researcher.

Semester 3 
Introduction to Addictions Treatment
Students will discuss the current state of knowledge concerning the nature of addiction. A major task of this course is definitional: to offer a conceptualization of addiction specific enough to be usable yet broad enough to encompass seemingly disparate behaviors such as compulsive overeating, disordered gambling, excessive devotion to work, and out- of- control spending. In this course attention is paid to the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of addictive behavior.
Students will look at what role do our drugs of choice play in society, and the ways has society tried to curb the use of drugs. This course focuses on the history of America’s, Canada’s, and Europe’s drug use and misuse, and on economic and legal history from the earliest days to the present time.

Biological Perspectives of Addiction
This course presents the physical side of alcohol abuse, alcoholism, and other addictions as well. The addictions we discuss in this course are not what you think of as your ordinary addictions, and only one involves a substance— food. What these addictions share is that they all involve everyday legal activities: eating, shopping, sexual activity, gambling, and surfing the Internet. What these behavioral or pleasure- related addictions have in common with the substance dependencies is that they are compulsive and obsessive, and they involve euphoria that is not induced artificially by a drug. Like all addictions, the ones we discuss in this course have strong biological, psychological, and social components.

Addiction Assessment and Intervention
Students will be introduced to the major drug categories and properties of some of the most popularly used drugs. This course will reveal the impact of chemical damage on the major body organs and reinforce information presented in the previous course on biological aspects of addiction. This course will introduce the basics of group counseling techniques that are aimed at clients whose cognitive resources may have been weakened through substance misuse. This course will also provide an overview of gender differences in biology, genetics, paths to dependence, and responses to various treatment options, relapse triggers, and social contexts. Students will discuss myths and misconceptions about gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual individuals that pose barriers to prevention and treatment.

Social Aspects of Addiction
This course will focus on the development of skills and versatility for understanding and working with people who have addictions. Students will explore the psychological, familial, and social impact of addiction. Theories for understanding addictive and co-dependent behaviour will be presented for examination and application to practice. This course will also define the role of mutual-help groups in the recovery process, and the strengths and limitations of such groups.

Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Issues
The course focuses on the Asian/Pacific Islanders, Alaskan/Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, and African Americans as examples. In order to avoid stereotyping, the diversity and complexity of each group is highlighted. The student is encouraged to focus on the strengths and traditional values of the most vulnerable in each group; that is, those who are recent immigrants, are poor, have a history of oppression, and may be undereducated. The purpose of this approach is to track influences on the path to drug initiation, drug use patterns, the consequences of drug misuse and addiction, and the resources available for recovery. In addition, the impact of race, ethnicity, culture, and class is also examined in relationship to gambling problems. Although the success of culturally specific treatment programs is a contested area that needs more research, several programs are described that have made progress in this area.

Addiction and Public Policy
This course describes the contemporary social context of public policy that impacts addiction, treatment, individuals and their families. Students will review several current social policies and evaluate on the basis of compassion, the effectiveness of these policies and how they address the problems related to addiction.

Stress Management
During this course students will learn to practice a comprehensive approach to Stress Management. Whether participants are looking for appropriate initiatives to apply from a corporate perspective, or as individuals, stress is an unavoidable reality that can be positively impactful. This course also includes information on the signs of chronic stress overload, identifying actions that add to people’s stress levels, and how to implement action to reduce unhealthy stresses.

Fees & Expenses

Fees Apply for this Academic Year.

• Registration: $100.00
• Textbooks: $1025.00
• Shipping: $61.00
• Tuition: $3,999.00

Total Tuition & Fees: $5,185.00