Associate Director of Counseling Services - National Louis University

Overview:

Who We Are:

 

National Louis is a 135+ year old university that has been grounded in the values of innovation, access, excellence, and equity from its inception. As an institution, we believe in providing access to educational opportunity and that education is our greatest lever for social and economic mobility. We are a student-focused community that is committed to continuous improvement and superior student service.  We believe that through education we are able to empower change and build healthy communities. Our hard-working community is based on collaboration and respect for all team members and students.

 

What You Will Do:

 

The Associate Director of Counseling Services is directly responsible for leading the University’s Counseling Services, emphasizing the management of clinical services, expanding mental health resources through internal and external counseling providers, and increasing student utilization of mental health resources. The Associate Director coordinates resources to support students' mental health on all campuses (Chicago, Wheeling, Lisle, Tampa, Online). The Associate Director manages the Counseling Center offices, including full-time, part-time, and student employees. As a member of the clinical staff, the Associate Director provides one-on-one counseling, consultation, outreach, and urgent-response services to students in support of the mission of the office/center and Division of Student Affairs. The Associate Director also serves as the Chief Crisis Counselor and the University's Confidential Advisor for survivors of Title IX incidents, including domestic violence, sexual misconduct, and discrimination. The Associate Director fosters a community of care and attention to the safety and wellness of individuals and the campus community, focusing on best practices for mental health services for low-income, racially diverse undergraduate and graduate students. The Associate Director of Counseling Services will implement a community-wide mental health awareness and training campaign, develop training that enhances University employees' ability to support students' health and well-being, and develop a graduate-level clinical practicum and internship training site that will strengthen services for students.

Essential Responsibilities:

Administrative:

• Develop and maintain policies and procedures to ensure adherence to the highest clinical standards, applicable legislation, local health and safety laws and regulations, risk management policies, and professional codes of ethics.
• Provide administrative supervision for full-time, part-time, and student employees. Liaison with the College of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences and lead the development and management of a graduate-level clinical internship/practicum training program to expand the center’s capacity to serve students and support the university’s ability to train future counselors for the profession.
• Regularly add and edit templates in electronic health records to facilitate the clearest, most accurate, and most efficient documentation of client visits.
• Regularly maintain and update the Counseling Center website to include updated resources for the university community. Serve as the primary contact and contract manager for the Uwill teletherapy and telehealth services.

Clinical Services & Counseling:

• Coordinate clinical services to ensure responsiveness to the student’s needs, including managing wait times and on-call follow-up for clinical sessions.
• Maintain a comprehensive referral network, identify professional resources in the community to make appropriate student referrals, and organize and implement a system for evaluating referral sources.
• Assist faculty in resolving unique and/or complex issues that interfere with students’ academic and personal success.
• Monitor EAB and Maxient alerts for health concerns and at-risk students for case management and follow-up.
• Provide faculty and staff support on referrals through EAB and Maxient, including consultations on student health and wellbeing.
• Oversee, organize, and integrate clinical services and manage the evaluation and assessment of the Counseling Center’s services and programs.
• Provide leadership in the scheduling, planning, implementing, and monitoring of all clinical policies and procedures. Represent the Counseling Services team in meetings with campus and community partners, participate in committees, and conduct consultations with faculty, staff, and students regarding student health and wellbeing.
• Work with staff to delegate and distribute caseloads for clinical counseling services (therapy, evaluation, crisis intervention, referral) to University students.
• Provide clinical counseling to students in when other full-time or part-time staff are not available.

Supervision:

• Provide clinical supervision for licensed counselor(s) and/or interns in providing mental health counseling services for NLU students.
• Oversee the intake process, maintain documentation and student records in compliance with HIPAA, and ensure licensed counselor(s) maintain all necessary continuing education credits for licensure.
• Provide Clinical Supervision to graduate-level counselors in training.

Budget & Finances:

• Work with the Director of Access and Campus Resources to manage the Counseling Center’s budget and spending.
• Collaborate with staff and Institutional Advancement to provide data for grant opportunities and applications that expand the Counseling Centers' work on all campuses.

Crisis:

• Serve as the Confidential Advisor for Title IX incidents, including relationship violence, discrimination, or sexual misconduct, as required by state law (Preventing Sexual Violence in Higher Education).
• Serve as the Chief Crisis Counselor, managing a caseload related to students in crisis, following up with urgent mental health and safety-related reports, and as a consulting member of the Emergency Response Team and the Student Affairs CARE case management team.

Other: 

• Additional related tasks and responsibilities as assigned by university leadership, adapting to changing needs and strategic priorities.
• Willingness to travel to other NLU campuses and work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends, as required for student events and activities. Ability to travel to other campuses. Some work required on evenings and weekends.

Qualifications:

• Master's degree in Counseling, Social Work, or a related field, or a terminal degree (e.g., PhD, PsyD) in Psychology or a closely related field required.
• Active license in the state of IL, LCPC or LCSW Required, required to be able to get licensed in Florida.
• 3-5 years of professional mental health counseling experience.
• 1-3 years of demonstrated experience recruiting, managing, supervising and evaluating professional, clinical, and/or student staff.
• Demonstrated experience with various technology platforms, including but not limited to Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Team, social media, etc.
• Preferred experience working in a college/university counseling center.
• Preferred experience with trauma-informed counseling.
• Planning: Develops the steps necessary to accomplish long-term goals. Identifies long and short-term goals and establishes realistic plans to reach them. Allocates required resources, allows for contingencies and ensures that plans fit with the larger needs of the organization. Sets milestones to measure progress along the way.
• Solving Problems: Takes a proactive approach to anticipating and preventing problems. When problems occur, defines those problems, investigates obstacles, gathers relevant information, decides whether solving the problem should be a group decision, generates and analyzes alternate solutions and arrives at a workable solution.
• Organizational Awareness: Understands the internal climate of the organization, including the most productive channels of communication, and makes use of the appropriate communication channels to achieve goals and objectives. Has learned about both formal and informal communication channels and understands when to stick to the formal hierarchy of reporting relationships. Understands unwritten protocols and the political aspects of how communication takes place. Avoids errors in judgment when selecting strategies for accomplishing tasks.

NLU Inclusion Statement:

 

National Louis University is deeply committed to serving its community, advancing access and equity, and ensuring that all individuals are welcomed and valued.  We are dedicated to fostering a culture where diversity, equity, and inclusion remain at the core of who we are. These are more than just words to us: they are truly a way of life for the NLU community. We recognize that differences in abilities, age, ethnicity, gender (identity and expression), race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and background bring richness to our work environment. We affirm diverse perspectives, innovative contributions, and authentic presentations of self from every member within the NLU community. We believe inclusion is grounded in the actions we intentionally take each day. Our goal is to inspire and empower NLU employees and community members to cultivate an environment where we collectively focus on uplifting and advancing our institutional culture.

Compensation and Benefits:

At National Louis University, we offer our employees an innovative environment to work together and inspire the ideas that will make an impact. As our external environment changes, our employees are provided the opportunities and tools needed to grow both personally and professionally to remain successful. NLU employees and dependents are offered a wide range of benefits, including but not limited to, Health Insurance benefits, Retirement benefits, Paid Time Off and Educational Opportunities. Additional information regarding full-time staff benefits can be found here.

 

The salary range of the grade for this position is $63,288 to $91,768 annually.  Compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.  Offers are based on multiple factors permitted by law, including but not limited to: budgetary considerations, job-related knowledge/skills, experience, market considerations, tenure and standing with the university (applicable to current employees), and internal equity.

Application Instructions:

Please Include the following along with your application:

• Resume (Required)
• Cover Letter (Optional)
• NLU Employees please also submit an Internal Posting Form