Decolonization in counselor education and practice

Episode

Two counselor educators, professional counselors, and researchers discuss what decolonization is and is not in counselor education. Drs. Smith-Yliniemi and Malott describe what motivates them to continue learning about ways to infuse decolonizing principles in their educational and clinical work. Both share practical examples and hopes for the future of decolonized practice.

Guests

Julie Smith-Yliniemi, PhD, LPC, NCC is an assistant professor and the director of community-engaged research for the Indigenous Trauma & Resilience Research Center, housed at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is Anishinaabe and grew up on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern MN. She is committed to helping improve the health of Indigenous people, both on Turtle Island and globally. She has had the privilege of formal and informal education and found her home in the behavioral health, academia, and public health arenas. Her background is in health education, school counseling, grant management, along with clinical mental health therapy/diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders. She spent several years adapting evidence-based trauma therapy models to fit with Native American traditional healing practices. She co-developed and implemented the first domestic cultural immersion event with the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). Board-certified counselors and counseling education professors spent eight days immersed in the Native American culture on her reservation, which led to her dissertation findings of increased cultural humility after immersion experiences. She worked with her community to develop a mobile crisis response team, which included local community members and mental health professionals.

Krista Malott, PhD, LPC (she/her/hers) is a professor at Villanova University. She began her career as a school counselor, with a focus on bilingual (Spanish-English) counseling and advocacy and equity efforts in the school settings. Since that time, she has worked in various counseling and educational settings, with an emphasis on critical and culturally humble cross-cultural counseling practices. In her current role as a counselor educator at Villanova University, she trains master-level school and community counselors, as well as oversees and teaches in a Minor in Counseling program. Her current teaching and scholarship emphasizes decolonizing and antiracist instructional and mental health practices.