News release Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu     www.selu.edu/news Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 4/16/03   Click on image for publication quality photo LAB UNVEILING – Martha Thornhill, interim dean of Southeastern Louisiana University’s College of Education and Human Development, second from left, joins Tangipahoa Parish School Board members Sandra Bailey-Simmons, Maxine Dixon, and Al Link in unveiling the sign on the door of the Counselor Training Lab, which has been created through a partnership between the university and the school system. The lab, located at Hammond Westside Upper Elementary, gives Southeastern school counseling students a setting for hands-on experience and the school system a way to providing counseling services to elementary grades. SOUTHEASTERN, TANGI SCHOOLS UNVEIL COUNSELOR TRAINING LAB       HAMMOND -- A new laboratory to help train school counselors is a “win-win” project for both Southeastern Louisiana University and the Tangipahoa Parish School System, educators from the university and school system agree.       The two parties recently celebrated the opening of the laboratory with a ceremonial ribbon cutting. Housed in three rooms at Hammond Westside Upper Elementary, the lab gives Southeastern graduate students studying to be school counselors an on-site laboratory. It enables the school system to provide counseling services to elementary grade students in a cost-effective way.       The lab is used by Southeastern College of Education and Human Development graduate students enrolled in their school counseling practicum, said Southeastern counseling professor Mary Ballard, who supervises the students along with her Southeastern education colleague Peter Emerson. The practicum provides the first field-based experience for Southeastern students, who are required to complete 100 hours of supervised on-site experience.        The center consists of a state-of-the-art observation room sandwiched between two traditional interview rooms. Through one-way mirrors, supervisors can monitor counselors-in-training as they work with their young elementary school clients. The supervisor and graduate student are also linked by audio earpieces, so the supervisor can offer coaching and guidance. Other practicum students can also observe their peers.       School Superintendent Virgil Allen, a Southeastern graduate who spent three years as a counselor at Ponchatoula High School, called the lab “an absolutely powerful tool ... that will provide a lot of good for a long time.”       “It’s been a long time coming and we are very proud of it,” Ballard said.       In addition to the practicum students, each semester five to 10 Southeastern graduate students serve 600-hour internships -- their final step before graduation -- at Tangipahoa Parish elementary and junior high schools.       The interns receive stipends through a professional service contract with the university, said the Tangipahoa Parish School System Administrator-at-Large Beth Moulds. Moulds originally wrote a grant to finance the paid internships, which have since been picked up by the school system’s general fund to the tune of approximately $35,000 a year.       Currently, six Southeastern counseling interns are working at Hammond Westside Upper and eight other Tangipahoa Parish schools. “I would have to pay a master’s level counselor $25,000 a year,” Moulds said. “The Southeastern interns are a significant value to the school system.”       “Southeastern does a wonderful job in training interns,” said Mary Broussard, the school system site supervisor who works with Southeastern counseling students. “I am continually amazed at their clinical and academic skills and their dedication. They are a very integral part of the school system.”       Westside Upper Principal Brenda Johnson said the school is grateful for the partnership with Southeastern and that the university “had the insight to know that we need counselors on the elementary level. I can’t see how we ever did without them.”       Current interns are Kelli Bertrand and Kristen Wood, Slidell; Chris Rheams and Lesa Cabrich, Mandeville; Angele Landry, Plaquemine; and Glenda Catania Jones, Hammond.        Ballard said Southeastern counseling students work with elementary students one-on-one and in small groups on academics, personal, social, and even career concerns. They also conduct classroom sessions on topics such as conflict resolution and anger management.       The counseling program at Southeastern offers tracks in community counseling, school counseling, student affairs counseling, and marriage and family therapy. The program is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. Southeastern counseling program graduates meet academic requirements for state licensure as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Louisiana and many other states.  Return to News Releases