Staff Counselor

Alongside Inc.; Michigan; On-site; USD 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Alongside Inc. is seeking a licensed mental health professional in Michigan to deliver intensive outpatient counseling and lead collaborative care.

You will engage with pastors, missionaries, and families, providing individual and group therapies within a multidisciplinary team. Responsibilities include networking with donors and churches, and taking on non-clinical duties such as Team Lead or Program Lead as needed to advance mission-driven outcomes.

Qualifications

• MA/MS/MFT or MSW in a mental health field or related program and licensure eligibility in Michigan.
• Michigan license (or eligibility) to practice mental health or professional counseling in Michigan.
• Strong cross-cultural competencies and familiarity with missions’ culture and context.
• Trauma-informed foundations and skills in multiple clinical modalities as relevant.

Responsibilities

• Provide excellent professional clinical care in intensive outpatient programs, including individual, couples, family, and group therapies.
• Represent Alongside to donors, churches, mission organizations, and alumni to promote programs.
• Collaborate with clinical team to build high-trust relationships and achieve treatment outcomes.
• Assume non-direct clinical roles such as Team Lead, Program Lead, or Coordinator.

Skills

Interpersonal skills

Emotional intelligence

Cross-cultural competencies

Critical thinking

Problem solving

Education

MA/MS/MFT or MSW in mental health

Michigan license or license-eligibility

Doctoral degree in mental health (preferred)

Tools

HIPAA knowledge

Job description

Purposes, Goals and Values

Alongside is a professional counseling ministry dedicated to helping Christian pastors, missionaries, leaders, and their families grow in personal wholeness, healthy relationships, and ministry effectiveness.

Vision Statement

Alongside envisions spiritually and emotionally healthy Christian leaders equipped to foster healthy Christ-followers.

Position Responsibilities:

• Service Delivery: to provide excellent professional clinical care in the context of our intensive outpatient counseling programs, including individual, couple, family, and group therapies as part of a multi-disciplinary team
• Networking: to represent and promote Alongside effectively to our constituency, including donors, churches, mission organizations, the member care / mental health and missions’ community, and alumni of our programs
• Teaming: to participate in building high-trust, high-integrity relationships with clinical team members that contribute to attainment of organizational and program goals, objectives, and desired treatment outcomes

Additional Alongside Roles

In addition to their clinical role, counselors at Alongside assume one or more non-direct clinical service roles that serve the organization in various ways, such as:

• Team Lead
• Program Lead
• Coordinator

Position Requirements:

Personal Attributes and Competencies

• A mature, growing, and dynamic Christian faith and passion for Jesus Christ, His Word, His Church, and His servants
• Genuine humility, curiosity, and a desire to grow in self-awareness and authenticity; humility that leads to Christ-like submissiveness and cooperativeness
• A warm, engaging, accessible individual who enjoys interaction with people from diverse cultural and church/ denominational contexts
• An ability to respond to the emotional intensity and complexity of an intensive counseling program with a measured response (i.e., effective self-regulation), poise, and awareness of his/her impact on the system
• Both the characteristics of psychological grit (i.e., the ability to persevere through adversity and complexity to achieve long-term goal or end state) and resilience (i.e., the ability to recover quickly, to adapt quickly with agility, when faced with difficult or challenging experiences)
• Courage to address conflict and boundary issues with appropriate energy
• A growth mindset and a lifelong learner

Professional Competencies, Capacities, and Training

• A commitment to the mission, vision, and core values of Alongside
• Initiative and takes responsibility in all aspects of work, noticing what needs to be done and proactively and collaboratively takes action to address the issue
• Skills at understanding and engaging in multi-generational and inter-cultural ministry
• Growing competencies at integration of psychology and psychological counseling with Scripture and orthodox Christian theology
• The ability to learn quickly, shift with agility, and leverage strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills
• The competencies to collaborate effectively with staff and clients via strong interpersonal skills and high levels of emotional intelligence
• The competencies to organize effectively, set priorities, develop and implementing plans, and address outcomes with corrective action
• A passion for professionalism and excellence
• Knowledge of and/or training in HIPAA guidelines for mental health professionals and programs
• Able to talk, hear, see, stand, walk, navigate stairs, sit, reach, stoop, kneel and bend as regular parts of the role
  
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision requirements due to computer work
• Able to use hands and fingers to operate a computer, telephone, keyboard and mouse
• Must be able to remain standing/sitting for long periods of time
• Able to lift up to and including 50 lbs. as needed
  
• Able to travel by ground or air transportation in changing weather conditions
• Maintain a valid U.S. driver’s license to operate a motor vehicle
• Participate in a post-offer drug screen
• Criminal background check

Minimum Qualifications and Experience:

• Minimum of M.A./M.S., M.F.T. or M.S.W. in a mental health or professional counseling program
• A Michigan license (or license-eligibility) to practice in a mental health or professional counseling field
• Personal ministry experience that provides a foundational understanding of the challenges encountered by our clients. Strong cross-cultural competencies and knowledge of missions’ culture are essential
• A strong foundation of clinical competencies in program-specific modalities:
  • Individual and couples’ counseling skills, preferably trauma informed and ideally with an Emotionally Focused Couples’ Therapy foundation
  • Group counseling skills, including both complex debriefing and process group experience
  • Theologically integrative psychoeducative seminar presentation skills
  • Assessment skills, including experience interpreting standard psychological assessments to aid in diagnosis and treatment planning
  • Multi-disciplinary teaming skills

Preferred Qualifications and Experience:

• Doctoral degree in a mental health field (e.g., Ed.D., Psy.D., Ph.D., M.D., or D.O. in Clinical or Counseling Psychology, Counselor Education and Supervision, Social Work, or Psychiatry)
• A Michigan license (or license-eligibility) to practice in a mental health or professional clinical counseling field
• A minimum of 4 years in full-time vocational ministry (international ministry experience is optimal when counseling cross-cultural workers)
• Versatile clinical competencies are preferred, including but not limited to:
  • Family/systems-oriented counseling approaches
  • Debriefing and process group skills
  • Parent coaching and consulting skills
  • Complex debriefing and trauma-oriented psychotherapeutic approaches (e.g., EMDR)

Physical Requirements: Need the items listed below or incorporate with Professional Competencies, Capacities, and Training

• Be able to commute between campus'
• Be able to travel for conferences