Rehabilitation Fieldwork - Practicum & Internship

All accredited graduate counseling programs contain two active dimensions within the learning experience. The first dimension involves the acquisition of the academic knowledge necessary to understand the various knowledge domains associated with counseling individuals and groups of individuals. The second dimension within counseling programs involves students acquiring the necessary experience to assist clients to perform effective problem-solving activities within their lives. Evaluation of each student's ability to train clients to effectively problem-solve is the focus of graduate fieldwork.

Graduate fieldwork involves two experiences within the rehabilitation curriculum (Practicum & Internship). Practicum is by its very nature an exploratory activity designed to investigate possible future professional employment settings that the graduate student may persure. Practicum involves performing professional counseling activity at one (or two) community agencies for a period of eight (8) hours per week (a total of 100 hours over a Fall or Spring semester). Students should also be aware that Practicum should be viewed as a pre-requisite for the more intensive Internship experience.

Internship is typically seen as THE cummulative application of graduate knowledge to graduate experience. Internship requires students to perform graduate-level, professional activities with actual clients in community agencies while under the supervision of professional counselors possessing advanced training in the agency's specialty area. The Intersnhip, by acreditation standards, require a minimum of six hundred (600) hours of professionally supervised activity over a Fall or Spring 16-week semester.

Within the University, Practicum & Internship must be pursued and applied for by each student with the assisstance of the student's Academic Advisor. The following "Fieldwork Handbook" provides students (and Supervisors) with all relevant information pertaining to Graduate Fieldwork at Mississippi State University's counseling programs (and specifically, Rehabilitation Counseling). Rehabilitation Fieldwork Handbook

Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) Option:

The State of Mississippi requires that students seeking licensure must graduate from a CACPREP accredited program with at least sixty (60) hours approved courses. Because our program is both CORE & CACREP accredited, rehabilitation counseling students who are interested in obtaining licensure (as well as the CRC), will need to add the following four (4) courses (12 credit hours) to your rehabilitation counseling Program-of-Study

COE 6903 - Developmental Counseling
COE 8303 - Family Counseling Theory
COE 8633 - Psycholosocial Rehabilitation
COE 8703 - Principles of Clinical Mental Health Counseling