NBCC Awards Spotlight: Innovations in Counseling

The NBCC Awards celebrate individuals who have worked diligently to advance the counseling profession. One award category, Innovations in Counseling, honors two counselor educators and a university department of clinical mental health counseling. Their contributions have expanded access to mental health services, strengthened the profession, and promoted equity in health and education. Three award subcategories highlight these contributions: Research Innovations in Counseling Practice and Counselor Education; Counselor Education Program Community Engagement; and Practice and Clinical Service. 

Research Innovations in Counseling Practice and Counselor Education 

Kelly Wester, PhD, NCC, LPC, is using her passion for counseling to fuel her research endeavors.  

“Being able to do the things that I love makes the job easier and balancing all of the things easier,” Dr. Wester says. “I love engaging in research. I love helping my students learn how to become researchers.” 

She is a professor and the chair of the Counseling and Educational Development Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, an active researcher, and a mother.  

Dr. Wester is currently working on two research agendas—non-suicidal self-injury and researcher development. Her research involves getting data from a high school about non-suicidal self-injury and suicidal behavior among adolescents, and looking at the development of research self-efficacy and interest among doctoral students in counselor education. 

Her passion for research began when she was a doctoral student at Kent State University. Dr. Wester took an internship at a juvenile residential treatment facility and then moved to a juvenile correctional facility.  

Non-suicidal self-injury was a significant issue at the correctional facility. Dr. Wester says around half of the males she worked with harmed themselves in this way.  

Individuals who engaged in non-suicidal self-injury were sent out of the facility into emergency rooms for assessment. Dr. Wester says the correctional facility treated self-injury like suicide, but it wasn’t a viable solution.  

“It created a lot of positive reinforcement for engaging, because it removed people from the facility,” Dr. Wester says. “Then we had more social contagion and an influx of self-injury that wasn’t helpful.”  

Dr. Wester wanted to gain a better understanding, so she looked into research on the topic. She learned that self-injury was most often seen as a behavior engaged in by substance-using middle-aged White women who were sexually abused. Because Dr. Wester observed that this wasn’t the case where she worked, she knew that more research was needed in order to help mental health professionals.  

As a doctoral student, she asked questions relevant to her work. Now, more than 20 years later, she’s made it her mission to inspire others to do the same.  

“If I can impact just one person who maybe never thought of themselves as a researcher, but learned and became passionate about research and are asking questions that are meaningful to them and their clients, that’s important to me,” Dr. Wester says. 

At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she helps students develop a research identity and approach topics with curiosity. Dr. Wester has included students in her own projects to help them learn about the research process.  

Students who want to take research a step further approach Dr. Wester with their own ideas.  

“I think of the meaningful work my students have engaged in, even from their own idea creation, which is really important and inspiring to me,” she says.  

Although it’s important for counseling students to learn research, Dr. Wester says practitioners also need to engage.  

“Practitioners are actually doing research every day,” Dr. Wester says. “A client sits across from them, they hypothesize about what might be happening, and they collect information from that client in order to support or disprove their hypothesis about what the presenting concern or diagnosis might be.”  

Dr. Wester believes if more clinicians see themselves as researchers, evidence-based practices can be enhanced in the counseling profession.  

“Do what you love. Be curious. Learning research is a lifelong journey,” she says. 

Counselor educators help students learn how they can apply their interests to make a difference. This often begins when students select a counseling program to enroll in. One counseling department has turned to the community to empower counseling students.  

Counselor Education Program Community Engagement 

The Department of Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Jacksonville University is using creative ways to support the surrounding community and its students. Bradley McKibben, PhD, NCC, BCTHP, RMHCI, a professor with the department, represented Jacksonville University in accepting the award at the NBCC Foundation’s 2024 Bridging the Gap Symposium. 

“It's almost sort of a symbiotic relationship that we have with a lot of our community partners,” Dr. McKibben said.  

The Department of Clinical Mental Health Counseling has a Community-Based Learning course that master’s students typically take in the fall of their final year. Dr. McKibben teaches the course at the Palm Coast campus. In the class, students connect with community agencies and learn what they do.  

“We try to really bring stuff to life for them to learn what's going on out there in the real world while [they’re] still in school so that [they] can sort of integrate it, think about it, reflect on it, learn, and then carry it forward,” Dr. McKibben says.  

The faculty at Jacksonville University’s Department of Clinical Mental Health Counseling work to build relationships with community organizations to support students and the needs of the Jacksonville area.  

Natalie Indelicato, PhD, LMHC, is the department chair. She partners with the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center in Jacksonville, Florida. The center does advocacy work with women and girls who are at risk for incarceration or difficulties in school. Some students at Jacksonville University work as interns and provide counseling for women and girls at the center.  

LaTonya Summers, PhD, LPC-S, LCAS, is another professor with Jacksonville University’s Department of Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She founded and coordinates the Black Mental Health Symposium, which teaches clinicians how to respond to mental health needs in the Black community. Students engage with the event by attending and presenting. There are also opportunities for students to help plan the event.  

“I think I see a lot of our students graduate feeling more connected to what's really going on in the community,” Dr. McKibben says. “By offering them all of these opportunities to get engaged with the community, [the students] really see some of the realities of the mental health needs and ways to be responsive to those mental health needs.” 

Once students graduate, Dr. McKibben adds that many alumni continue to serve in their communities either through direct clinical work or dedicating their free time to getting involved.  

“This award affirms that the work we're doing is good work, and it's meaningful work, and it's humbling. It's nice that others recognize it, too,” Dr. McKibben says.  

Counseling programs and educators inspire the next generation of counselors.  

Practice and Clinical Service 

As a doctoral student at the University of North Texas, Terry Kottman, PhD, NCC, LMHC, RPT-S, developed Adlerian Play Therapy.  

“I was at the time studying different theories and child-centered/person-centered didn’t resonate with me. I was drawn to Adlerian theory, and I started wondering, based on some feedback from a little girl,” Dr. Kottman says.  

At the time, Dr. Kottman worked with a 7-year-old girl who noticed she acted differently outside of session.  

Dr. Kottman recalls what the girl was like. “[She] said ‘How come you’re not yourself in that room with the toys? How come you just tell me what I’m doing? I already know ‘cause I did it. How come you’re not funny and fun like you are outside the room with the toys?’”  

These questions resonated with Dr. Kottman. She thought about what she could do to better serve this girl and other clients. Soon, Adlerian Play Therapy was born.  

Adlerian Play Therapy is a holistic process that gives children an opportunity to engage in the therapeutic process. It combines concepts from Alfred Adler’s theory of individual psychology with play therapy. Adlerian Play Therapy has four phases that use directive and non-directive methodologies.  

“It’s kind of weird because I wasn’t planning on anybody else using [Adlerian Play Therapy],” Dr. Kottman says. “I was just going to use it myself because it worked for me.”  

One of Dr. Kottman’s counseling professors encouraged her to train other people in how to use Adlerian Play Therapy. Dr. Kottman took on the challenge. Decades later, Adlerian Play Therapy is being used by mental health professionals around the world. 

Dr. Kottman discovered mental health professionals in Asia especially resonated with this therapy. 

“Adlerian Play Therapy makes sense to them because it is very collectivist in nature,” she says. “The holistic part of it and the working with family part of it really makes sense to many people who live in different parts of Asia.”  

The NBCC Practice and Clinical Service Award highlights Dr. Kottman’s achievement with Adlerian Play Therapy and her dedication to the counseling profession.  

“I was very touched that I got nominated for this award because sometimes when you are an innovator, there’s pushback. It felt super affirming and encouraging to get this award,” Dr. Kottman says.  

She saw that one of her first clients had a specific need, so she adapted her practice to meet that need. Dr. Kottman hopes other counselors will be inspired to try new things and listen to the unique needs of their own clients.  

“That little girl needed me to be my real self,” Dr. Kottman says. “I do think who you are as a person, what your real self is as a person, is your primary tool as a counselor.”  

NBCC is proud to highlight counselors who embrace their real selves while also helping clients and counseling students discover themselves.  

Hear from each NBCC Award winner about their work and how other counselors can have an impact. Learn more by going to the NBCC Awards’ YouTube playlist.