NBCC Awards Spotlight: Leadership Excellence for Counselors by Counselors

Educators play a significant role in supporting the counseling profession. Aside from giving counselors-in-training the skills they need to excel in their practice, they serve as leaders to propel their students to new heights.

The NBCC Leadership Excellence for Counselors by Counselors Award celebrates two counseling professors for their exceptional leadership. The individuals have ensured that strong standards are in place that are informed by counselors, intentionally equitable, and appropriately inclusive. The award considers six pillars of sustaining the counseling profession. This includes educational eligibility standards, ethics, examination, continuing education, regulatory service, and legislative advocacy. The award winners are making positive changes in several of these pillars as they use their passion for mental health to support other counselors and underserved populations.

Dr. Victoria Kress

As a counseling student at the University of Akron, Victoria Kress, PhD, NCC, CCMHC, LPCC-S, knew she had to take her passion for the profession a step further.

Dr. Kress recognized that people who rely on Medicare needed access to mental health services. Until earlier this year, mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists were not reimbursed for Medicare services. She began talking to lawmakers about why Medicare reimbursement is crucial for mental health professionals. Now, more than 20 years later, that initial advocacy work is making a significant difference. Dr. Kress hasn’t stopped her advocacy work since.

“I've worn a lot of different hats over my career and for me, advocacy for the profession has always been at the forefront,” she says.

Dr. Kress has been the President of Chi Sigma Iota International, the Association for Humanistic Counseling, and the North Central Association for Counselors, Educators and Supervisors. Currently, she is a Distinguished Professor, counseling clinic director, and the Director of the Clinical Mental Health and Addictions Counseling Programs at Youngstown State University.

Supporting other counselors is fundamental to Dr. Kress. She emphasizes the importance of growing advocates and developing more leaders in the profession.

“To me, our challenge as counselors is how do we systematically grow leaders? How do we systematically grow advocates? Over my career, I've started many of these different emerging leader programs and leadership development programs in an attempt to be able to do that,” Dr. Kress says.

She encourages counselors to follow their passions, open themselves up to new experiences, and try to make a difference.

“If you are really interested in in being part of the solution and making a difference there, you're going to find avenues to help you become a successful advocate,” Dr. Kress says.

Dr. Kress considers the NBCC Leadership for Counselors by Counselors Award an honor, as it recognizes her diligent work to advance the profession.

“It really moves me to think that my colleagues and the counselors who I love and care about so much in our profession see me as a leader,” Dr. Kress says. “That really means so much to me. It's definitely something that I strive to do, and I will do until I die.” 

Dr. Asha Dickerson

A phone call in 2013 helped Asha Dickerson’s dream of becoming a counselor educator come true. She was one of 24 people to be selected for the first NBCC Minority Fellowship Program (MFP). She received funding to support her education and a mentor to guide her decision to serve underrepresented communities.

More than a decade later, Asha Dickerson, PhD, NCC, ACS, LPC, is making history again. She is the first NBCC MFP alumna to receive an NBCC Award. In her MFP 2013 biography, she wrote that her goal was to “educate, encourage and enrich the lives of her clients, students, employees and the community through her commitment to advocacy, mental health and leadership.”

Dr. Dickerson has accomplished that, and more.

She currently works as an Associate Professor at Adler Graduate School and the owner of AD Advantage Counseling & Education Services LLC. She is the current President of the Association for Multicultural Counseling & Development.

One of Dr. Dickerson’s passions is counselor supervision. She is working with counselors-in-training to help them become strong mental health practitioners.

“In working with 20 counselors, I’m working with hundreds of clients and I’m able to make more of a difference in my community,” she says.

Dr. Dickerson’s specialties include social and cultural diversity, addictions, and blended family issues.

“I am very passionate about ethnic issues—well really advocating for everyone—but especially ethnic issues,” she says.

Dr. Dickerson has taught a multicultural counseling course at Adler Graduate School. Her passion for ethnic issues extends to her hope of equipping young counselors with the skills to excel. Beyond the classroom, Dr. Dickerson runs the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision’s Emerging Leaders program with MFP alum Dr. Michael Jones.

“I feel like we’re getting older. We were emerging leaders and a couple of decades later it’s really time for us to pass on that knowledge so that all of the stuff we have learned, we don’t lose that,” Dr. Dickerson says.

She received the NBCC Leadership Excellence for Counselors by Counselors Award because of her commitment to empower counselors-in-training. Although she is proud of her work as a counselor educator, she wants people to know her work extends beyond that. 
“I don’t just want to be known as a great professor. I want to be known as a great counselor and as a great leader,” Dr. Dickerson says.

Listen to Dr. Dickerson and Dr. Kress share their stories on NBCC’s YouTube channel. Nominations for next year’s awards will open soon. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements in future Visions newsletters, on NBCC’s website and social media pages.