Alusine Multicultural Family Consulting

         I always look forward to meeting new clients and hearing all about their needs for counseling. My approach is introducing myself and provide a brief overview of who I am and what you do with intentions of building a relationship with client. The client is asked to sign professional disclosure statement. This is my contract with the client which refer to process’s cancellation or no-show fees, confidentiality procedures and establishes the professional side of the counseling partnership, which is important for clients to know and understand.

        I also make sure to share with new clients the limits of confidentiality so that they clearly understand the responsibility I have for their care and well-being. Finding out more about what precipitated the client’s desire to start counseling is very important. However, as counselor, I establish the fact that counseling has a direction and is goal-oriented, so establishing at least a general idea of what the client wants or needs to accomplish in their therapy with you will set the tone and the focus for the next session, as well as the course of the counseling process. 

         The first session with a client is both exciting and anxiety-provoking and this is normal!  I chose to be a counselor, and look forward to the journey I will have with the new client as I provide them with the guidance, support and counseling they are seeking. I masterfully develop therapeutic alliance, instilling hope, quickly centering on achievable objectives, judiciously selecting evidence-based practices, maximizing out-of-session change opportunities, and facilitating treatment adherence and follow-up to make sure treatment gains are maintained long after termination. I show flexibility, empathy and advocacy. I am totally committed to the clients I serve. I demonstrate an ability to truly listen to the spoken and unspoken, advance accurate empathy [and] ability to establish rapport with a diverse clientele.

The most useful skills or attributes I possess as counselor include, self-awareness knowledge of self, including attitudes, values, and feelings and the ability to recognize how and what factors affect you as a counselor, empathy and understanding, flexibility in maintaining a therapeutic relationship and clients’ benefit. My skills in meeting newly with clients includes demonstrating courage, compassion and the ability to not only listen, but to hear. I employ empathy and multicultural competency. Strong counseling skills can be used throughout one’s lifetime, in so many ways, to help clients as well as others encounter day-to-day basis. I became a counselor knowing the research on what works in counseling, understanding what counseling is (and is not).

     My education and training relates well to counseling individuals, families and businesses. I have successfully earned a BA in speech communication, MA in human resource management and two doctorate degrees; the first in communication instruction from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA and the second in multicultural counseling from Argosy University in Fl.

    My counseling coursework which are directly related to counseling includes applications of pastoral community counseling to non-western health and healing practices, multicultural counseling, interviewing, cognitive behavior therapy, individual spiritual development, program evaluation, theories of child and adolescent counseling, marriage and family counseling, quantitative and qualitative research.

         My background in communication, multicultural counseling, training and development, author, legal research, public relations, academic adviser, professor and earning a  second doctorate in multicultural community counseling.  Skills and competences include knowledge of training and development with expertise as 5 times published author in communication education with expert knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods. 

      I have in my professional career taught introduction to communication, interpersonal communication, small group communication, public speaking, intercultural communication and organizational communication as Instructor in communication at Montgomery College, Northern Virginia Community college, George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and with Global Campus of Michigan State University. 

   I am author of Reflections in Communication: An Interdisciplinary Approach, published by the University Press of America, and co-author of Connecting Intercultural Communication: Techniques for Communicating across Cultures, with Kendall Hunt Publishing, Experiencing Interactive Interpersonal Communication with Xlibris and Faculty Development Programs: Strategies for Teaching and Learning with I universe. My most recent publication is Processing Public Speaking Perspectives in Information Production and Consumption with Xlibris.