Empowering Counseling Program

The Empowering Counseling Program (ECP) creates partnerships with schools, residents, churches, and social service providers throughout Chicagoland to provide school-based clinical social work services to disadvantaged youth and young adults who might not otherwise receive counseling or support. Through the program, youth and young adults are encouraged to develop leadership skills, coping mechanisms and become strong members of their community beginning at a young age. We also provide services to families and adults as needed. Counseling services of the ECP are designed and implemented through a street-based social work framework. This model was formed through a combination of the strength-based perspective, self-determination, and trauma theories while intersecting psychodynamic, ecological, and cultural contexts. ECP overall aims to maximize the creativity and leadership skills of our social work students and clientele. We strive to uphold solidarity with our clients in order to respond creatively to the formidable problems of poverty, racial discrimination, community violence, educational disadvantage, and social exclusion.