Child and Family Counseling

Program Overview

The Doctor of Christian Counseling in Child and Family Counseling equips counselors to help children through the ordinary and extraordinary hardships of growing up — anxiety, grief, divorce, bullying, learning struggles, and loss of faith — and to help their parents help them. Children rarely come to counseling by themselves and rarely change by themselves; the family is both the context of the problem and the most powerful resource for its solution. Students study child and adolescent development, including the development of faith, and then the counseling methods that fit children's minds. Child-centered play counseling in the tradition of Virginia Axline and Garry Landreth treats play as the child's natural language; child-parent relationship therapy trains parents to use those skills at home; sandtray, bibliotherapy, and expressive methods give children other ways to speak; and cognitive behavioural strategies help anxious children face what they fear. Students learn to counsel parents through behaviour, discipline, divorce, and grief, to consult with schools, and to handle the ethical questions unique to minors: parental consent and the child's assent, confidentiality, and the mandate to report abuse. Jesus welcomed children and set one in the midst of His disciples, and the program takes that welcome as a counseling posture. The doctoral project develops and evaluates a child and family counseling service, parent program, or school partnership in the student's setting. Graduates lead children's counseling ministries, school and church partnerships, and parent education programs. The degree is ministry and academic formation and does not license anyone to practise counseling.

Core Courses

• CFC 801 — Child Development and Children’s Spirituality (6 credits)
• CFC 812 — Play Counseling and Expressive Methods (6 credits)
• CFC 824 — Counseling Parents and Families (6 credits)
• CFC 836 — Children in Crisis: Grief, Divorce, and Trauma (6 credits)
• CFC 848 — Ethics, Safeguarding, and the Law (5 credits)
• CFC 860 — Research Methods with Children and Families (4 credits)
• CFC 899 — Doctoral Project in Child and Family Counseling (24 credits)

Admission Requirements

• Master's degree in counseling, pastoral care, ministry, psychology, or a related field
• Experience in counseling, pastoral care, chaplaincy, or lay care ministry
• Statement of purpose describing the people you care for and the question you want to pursue
• Current resume or ministry profile
• Official transcripts from prior institutions when available
• Signed acknowledgment that the degree does not by itself confer a license to practise counseling in any jurisdiction