Acadia University School of Education

Master of Education (Counselling)

Program Description

The Counselling Program has a school counselling stream and an agency counselling stream. Normally, the full-time program is designed to be completed within a 14 month period beginning in the summer of year one and ending in mid August of the following summer. As such, the workload can be intense. Students are advised to manage their time well in order to meet the demands of this program. Each individual needs to consider if this demanding schedule is compatible with their other commitments. The part-time program is designed as a cohort group allowing for a schedule of professional courses over a three year period. The program intends to provide competent practitioners who have solid academic and research orientations who are able to adapt to changing and diversifying roles of counsellors. The program operates from an integrative theoretical orientation. Students are exposed to a wide variety of counselling approaches including existential, person-centered, cognitive-behavioral, narrative, and family-systems. The core courses are designed to provide students with the skills and knowledge to enable them to work as counsellors or consultants, in private, institutional and academic settings.

The general objectives of the program are:

the development, application and evaluation of counselling practices
promotion of ethical behavior
understanding of and respect for human diversity
coverage of the broad discipline of counselling.

To accomplish these objectives, the plan of study includes a series of courses and a practicum that is supervised by professional counsellors in schools, university/college and community agencies.