The American Counseling Association designates April as Counselor Awareness Month (CAM). The ACA advocates for professional counselors in a variety of settings and is the gold standard for professional ethics for clinical and professional counselors across the United States.
This year’s theme, The Future is Self-Care, Advocacy and Inclusion, seems especially poignant and thoughtful against the backdrop of the past year.
This is different than Mental Health Awareness month coming up in May. This month is designated to celebrate our profession and all the many ways and people counselors impact locally and across the nation.
Counselors work in a variety of settings, agencies, schools, organizations, private practices, and health care systems. This month is a time to celebrate us, our profession, and promote mental health for counselors. This year ACA designated, Friday, April 9 as TEAL DAY. Everyone is encouraged to wear teal “to support the nationwide effort to raise awareness of counselors and promote mental health during Counselor Awareness Month.”
Spectrum Health employs a lot of counselor in a variety of roles. Spectrum Health is supportive of the profession for years, especially in the field of training and counselor education. Spectrum Health is well known as the place to go for a great internship! (Check out the Careers tab on our website for internship and position openings.) This year CAM flew under the radar, however Spectrum Health quickly got on board with supporting CAM 2021 with this post and has been in-step with the #burnbrightnotout motto of CAM 2021 since last year. So you could say we are trendsetters!
How can you show your support for the counselor in your life?
Visit https://www.counseling.org/knowledge-center/mental-health-resources/counselingawarenessmonth.
Toni Steinbarth, MS, LMHC
Managing Director of Community Based Services
