COA - Council On Accreditation

	Counseling, Support, and Education Services

Introduction

Administration and Management

Service Delivery Administration Standards

Service Standards

Definition

Counseling, Support, and Education Services are prevention oriented and provided in the community to help families and individuals of all ages cope with the stresses of daily living. Services emphasize personal growth, development, and situational change.

Note: Counseling, Support, and Education Services are distinct from Outpatient Mental Health Services (MH), which address mental health symptoms and associated functional impairments or psycho-social adjustments.

Note: Counseling, Support, and Education Services standards accomodate an array of service modalities designed to provide support, information, or counseling to individuals in the community including information and referral programs, one-time community-based educational programming, support groups, or on-going individual and family counseling.

Counseling services may also be provided in conjunction with other more intensive services to address such issues as: rape crisis and other victim trauma, and complex individual or family circumstances that can occur with substance use, mental health or medical conditions,and job loss.

Organizations providing Counseling, Support, and Education services to individuals and families will complete: CSE 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7.

Organizations providing Education and Support group services will complete CSE 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8.

Organizations providing Information and Referral services will complete: CSE 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9.

Note: Please see Self-Paced_Training: Counseling, Support, and Education Services (CSE) in the Tools Index for additional assistance with this standard.


	PURPOSE: Individuals and families who participate in Counseling, Support, and Education Services identify and build on strengths, develop skills to manage situational change, access appropriate community support and resources, and improve functioning in daily activities at home, at work, and in the community.

RELATED FILES


	SERVICE One or more organization-operated programs or activities that have a common general objective and deploy the organization's material and human resources in a planned and systematic manner. An organization that publicly promotes or identifies itself in writing as offering a service, is licensed to deliver a service, assigns personnel and/or space to a service, or allocates financial resources to a service is considered to offer that service.


	COMMUNITY A specific group of people living in the same locality and who may share a common culture, values, and norms. Communities can also be defined by race, religion, ethnicity, age, occupation, political status, tribal affiliation, interest in particular problems or outcomes, or other common bonds. The term "community" encompasses worksites, schools, tribes, residential neighborhoods, business districts, recreational areas, and health and human service sites.


	PREVENTION Actions taken to minimize and/or eliminate social, psychological, or other conditions. Prevention can occur at the individual, group, community, and societal levels and enhances opportunities to achieve positive fulfillment.


	IMPAIRMENT A loss or abnormality in physiological, psychological, or mental structure or functioning, such as paralysis of a limb, mental retardation, or blindness.


	PROGRAM A system of services offered by an organization. For example, an organization providing a mental health service may offer several mental health programs to different populations, e.g., a mental health program for adolescent teens. The word "program" can be used interchangeably with the word "service" or to describe specific programs.


	FAMILY Two or more people who consider themselves family and who assume obligations, functions, and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socialization, income support, long-term care, and other caregiving are among the functions of family life. The definition of "family" will rest with an individual's indication of who plays a family member role, including current or former foster family, adoptive family, extended family members, fictive kin, or significant others. Organizations that believe family is the central constellation in a child's life, and that family attachments are of primary importance for human development, will strive to work with professional staff to develop a common understanding of "family."