Dr. Duncan Wigg
Since establishing the Urban Initiative, GSEP has placed numerous students in schools and nonprofit organizations in underserved areas through student teaching positions and practicum. These experiences help students become acquainted with the cross-cultural issues and complexities of urban life, and to apply the lessons they have learned in the classroom to the field. Students are also guided to navigate community systems such as schools, courts, child welfare agencies, welfare departments, hospitals, and other health care agencies. But, most importantly, we teach our students to become empowered to work in unfamiliar territory, so that they in turn may empower the communities. A great example of this model is our Community Counseling Center at the Irvine Graduate Campus. The center caters to individuals, couples, and families experiencing marital and relationship problems; child and adolescent behavioral, attention, and academic problems; singleparenting, blended or stepfamily issues; difficulty adjusting to chronic illness; grief; stress; postpartum distress; and aging concerns. The center offered low-fee services to approximately 250 clients just last year.
The Community Counseling Center is considered such an important community resource that it was just awarded an $18,000 grant from the HealthCare Foundation for Orange County to support the center’s partnership with Village of Hope, a transitional housing facility for nearly 200 homeless individuals. Village of Hope opened in March 2008 and operates as a part of the Orange County Rescue Mission. The funds will sponsor the Pepperdine University Mental Health Collaborative, enabling additional research, supervision of trainees, and further development of a relationship with Orange County Rescue Mission Health Care Services; the University of California, Irvine Department of Psychiatry; and Pepperdine University to better serve Orange County’s homeless. “This gift is especially generous during our current economic climate,” said Dr. Duncan Wigg, director of the Community Counseling Center, author of the proposal, and chief champion for the funding and its allocation to the city’s growing homeless population. “We are grateful that the HealthCare Foundation is as committed to supporting our society’s most vulnerable as we are. The six master’s students and three alumni from the GSEP marriage and family therapy program working at Village of Hope have already provided more than 850 hours of counseling services over the last academic year, and we will continue to offer and expand our mental health resources to those in need for as long as the need remains.”
GSEP Colleague Fall/Winter 2009 7