Earn an Accredited Counseling M.S. in 18 Months

Help prevent substance abuse, counsel people with addictive disorders, and provide other services to people suffering from addiction when you graduate with an Addiction Counseling master’s degree program from JWU. 

This 18-month, full-time program* helps prepare master’s-level clinicians to become licensed mental health counselors (LMHC) and is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).

With two cohort starts each year (fall or spring) and classes that meet in late afternoons and evenings, the program’s schedule has the flexibility to accommodate fieldwork placements during the day and on weekends.

Learn clinical skills by turning theoretical foundations into positive, ethical client interaction and intervention. The counseling training laboratory and clinical field experience sites provide students with hands-on training by licensed professionals.

The 60-credit program includes 12 core courses, 4 electives, a practicum and an internship. This fieldwork puts professional knowledge into practice, starting with a 100-hour practicum followed by a 600-hour internship under the supervision of clinical professionals.

Graduates are expected to demonstrate a solid understanding of methods to diagnose, assess, test and treat a wide range of issues in the context of addiction counseling, treatment and prevention programs, as well as a broader mental-health counseling context.

_{Note: A part-time option is available. Part-time students follow a study plan of two courses per semester, completing the program in 3 years.}

Gain Advanced RI Drug Counselor Certification

This master’s degree provides you the opportunity to attain required coursework relevant to addiction treatment to become an RI Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CAADC), including the following, which meet the hourly requirements for certification:

• six hours in substance use disorders ethics
• six hours in confidentiality
• six hours in communicable diseases
• six hours in medication assisted treatment

Also required is one year of work experience or 2000 hours working part-time as a drug and alcohol counselor and 100 supervised hours. Clinical internships completed as part of a college degree program may be eligible for use toward the required work experience.

Therapy that Leverages Nature’s Healing Properties

A member of JWU Providence’s Clinical Health Counseling program’s first graduating cohort, Danielle Gagnon ’16 M.S. uses nature as a synergistic component of her counseling strategy. Throughout her career, she has practiced experiential therapeutic modalities and integrating the healing nature of the outdoors, including wilderness therapy.

Gagnon currently practices in Utah, where she became a licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. She has primarily worked with adolescents who have struggled with anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use and emotional regulation.

Gagnon has trained and is certified in many clinical modalities, including Brain Spotting, Trauma-Focused CBT and SMART Recovery; she is also Safe Zone-certified for working with the LGBTQ+ population. She believes these forms of therapy create a space to allow students to access negative memories or feelings and release them, allowing the brain and body to heal.