Three College of Education & Human Development students were selected for the 2018 National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) Minority Fellowship Program.
Mary Huffstead and Tameeka Hunter are two of 23 doctoral counseling students chosen nationwide for the fellowship and will each receive $20,000 in funding and training to support their education and facilitate their service to underserved minority populations.
Jonathan Yellowhair is one of 33 master’s-level counseling students chosen nationwide for the NBCC Minority Fellowship Program for Addictions Counselors, which offers $11,000 in funding and training to support his addictions counseling service to underserved minority transition-age youth (ages 16-25).
Huffstead is a graduate of Indiana State University and Auburn University and is currently a doctoral student in the counselor education and practice program at Georgia State University. She is interested in researching multiracial individuals’ experiences and/or perceptions of counseling. She worked as a counselor for a community-based setting in Georgia where she provided in-home therapy to “at-risk,” primarily minority, children who had open cases with the Department of Children and Family Services. Last year, she completed a year-long clinical internship at LifeSafe Resources (originally the YWCA of Northwest Georgia), which services women and children who have experienced domestic violence and sexual assault. She is currently a doctoral counseling intern at the Atlanta Mission, a community-based agency serving individuals that experience home insecurity. She provides individual and group play therapy to children, ages 3 to 7 years old, who are exhibiting trauma symptomology. This fellowship will help Huffstead contribute to the literature related to bringing focus to economically disadvantaged and traumatized Black youth and biracial/multiracial individuals’ identity and mental health implications. This fellowship will also assist her with attending conferences and trainings toward further development as a competent professor and mental health clinician working with underserved minority populations.
Hunter is both a graduate and student of Georgia State, where she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the counselor education and practice program. Hunter is an intersectional diversity scholar who focuses her clinical and scholarly work on populations that experience multiple marginalized identities, particularly those that experience chronic illness and/or disability and are sexual minority persons. This fellowship will uniquely position her to make a greater contribution to the counseling profession and to further hone her skills in serving historically underrepresented communities.
Yellowhair is a graduate of Northern Arizona University and is currently a master’s student in the clinical mental health counseling program at Georgia State. Upon graduation, Yellowhair’s aspirations consolidate around devoting his efforts toward indigenous youth to ease the transition from communities where trauma, such as addiction and suicide, are commonplace. He plans to utilize his work and volunteer experiences with marginalized communities while living in Atlanta to tailor therapy and treatments to help alleviate current stigmas surrounding mental health on the Navajo Nation. Receiving this fellowship will grant Yellowhair access to extensive resources to achieve that goal and provide the space for continual growth in his professional career as a clinical mental health counselor. With the help of the fellowship, Yellowhair can continue his pursuits in academia and advocate for the Navajo Tribe through conferences and trainings on a national level.
To learn more about the fellowship program, visit www.nbccf.org/Programs/Fellows.