Oakland Counseling Association

The Oakland Counseling Association is a not-for-profit, professional and educational organization that is dedicated to the growth and enhancement of the counseling profession.

Mission

The mission of the Oakland Counseling Association is to enhance the quality of life in Oakland County by promoting the development of professional counselors, advancing the counseling profession and

using the profession and practice of counseling to promote respect

for human dignity and diversity.

• Join OCA! 2024-2025 OCA Membership
• Mini-Grant Application Closed
• Recent OCA Professional Learning Events
• Save the Dates: Upcoming OCA Events
• Counselor of the Month Nominations
• End of Year Awards Nominations are Now Open!
• Join the OCA Board

The Oakland Counseling Association is a membership-based, community organization. Memberships run from September 1st through August 31st each year. Now is still a great time to renew or activate OCA membership to take advantage of all the discounted event registrations, free SCECH processing, and mini-grants available to members only.

2024-2025 OCA membership information is available on the OCA Membership page.

COST

• Individual counselor - $25
• Graduate school student - $10
• Retired counselor - $10

BENEFITS OF OCA MEMBERSHIP

• FREE or reduced price professional learning opportunities
• All online professional learning events are FREE for members
• FREE SCECH processing for all events
• Identify as a professional counselor (solidarity)
• Opportunities to network and connect with other mental health professionals
• Advocacy and support for counselors
• Eligible for mini-grant opportunities
• Eligible for end of year awards
• Eligible for membership and prize drawings
  

OTHER NOTES

• Membership is valid from September 1 through August 31 each school year
• Membership is open to all school and private practice counselors
• Membership is welcome for counselors outside of Oakland County

Each year OCA offers a mini-grant program that is exclusive to members. This year we offered eight, $250 grants to support an initiative that directly advances career readiness, academic growth, and/or social/emotional development with students. The application was open for proposals through October 13, 2024.

Unfortunately, we only had four counselors apply for mini-grants this year. WHAT?! Free money that could be used to enhance your programming just sitting there for the taking!

Well, your loss is another's gain. Due to the low number of applications we were able to increase each of the four recipients' awards up to $500 this year to make those planned activities or purchases even more impactful.

Samantha Ellis - Royal Oak Middle School

• Incentives for Mental Health Door Decorating and Poster Contests

• Incentives for Academic Progress Using the Successful Students Rubric

Melissa Ng - Anderson Middle School (Berkley)

• Furnishings and Items for the Vikings in Peace (VIP) Calm Room

Stephanie Pitcher - Chippewa Valley High School

• Field Trip Bussing for a Macomb Community College Campus Visit

A lot has happened since our first quarterly newsletter came out in September. Check out some of the recent events hosted or supported by OCA.

In partnership with OCC, OCA coordinated the registration and SCECHs for this virtual training that helped meet the implicit bias training requirements for LPC/LLC counselors.

30 counselors attended to learn about and discuss power dynamics, identifying different types of power, and the impact of supporting K-12 students.

This was a hot ticket with registration filling up within a matter of hours after opening up. Are OCA events venturing into Taylor Swift concert territory here... too soon to tell. Were you one of the lucky ones?

Over 40 counselors attended this in-person experience at the Selfridge Air National Guard Base to learn about available careers and to receive a tour of the base.

Once again in partnership with OCC, OCA coordinated the SCECHs for this in-person event at the OCC Auburn Hills campus.

Over 50 counselors attended for a great morning meal and to receive information from MDE and OCC around dual enrollment and other partnership opportunities between K-12 and postsecondary.

OCC shared a Flickr ablum with photos from the event. Check out all those attentive and happy counselor faces!

Special thanks to our OCA board members Amanda Gohl and Selina Abraham who organized 12 different speakers representing a variety of in-state and out-of-state colleges and universities as well as various programs associated with college planning.

We had 145 counselors join for this full-day virtual event. Check out the participant agenda for contact info and some resources from the presenters.

On Friday, December 6th, OCA hosted our 4th Annual College Counseling for School Counselors virtual event. The day was jam packed. We heard from colleges and universities such as Calvin University, Purdue University - Fort Wayne, Hope College, Xavier University of Louisiana, Fisk University, and University of South Florida. We even had the United States Air Force Academy and the US Coast Guard Academy talk about their programs and the admissions process. This year we also heard from QuestBridge, Golden Apple Scholars, and CollegeVine. We had SO MANY counselors in attendance throughout the day and lots of great questions were asked.

Each year we try to host different colleges, typically ones we don’t get to hear from at Promoting the Publics or through MCAN’s virtual series. We’d love to get more input from counselors about who you would like to hear from next year. If you have any suggestions, please let us know in the brief survey below.

These are the currently scheduled dates and topics for more OCA professional learning events happening during the 2024-2025 school year:

• 3/7/2025 - K-8 School Counselor Resources (in-person, TBD)
• 4/25/2025 - Student Career Supports & End of Year Awards (in-person, Walled Lake)

OCA members enjoy free or minimal registration costs for all events and SCECH processing is included. You can find additional details and registration info as it becomes available in the new year on the OCA Events page.

In an effort to highlight the remarkable work of OCA counselors, we will be requesting Counselor of the Month nominations each month. This recognition effort will highlight one outstanding counselor each month. Nominees must be a current OCA member to receive the recognition (and potentially a small prize 😊).

Thank you for your nominations!

The 2024-2025 Oakland Counseling Association End of Year Award Nominations are now open! Each year we like to honor counselors for all of their hard work. If you work with or have worked with a counselor that you think goes above and beyond and deserves to be recognized for their hard work, we encourage you to take the time to nominate them.

The deadline for nominations is March 7, 2025. Decisions will be made mid-March and we will reach out to the nominator with our decision.

The nominee DOES have to be an OCA Member. It’s never too late to join, membership is still open on our website. If you're not sure if your nominee is a member, please email all three of the following people and one of us will respond as soon as possible:

• agohl@birmingham.k12.mi.us (Amanda)
• PamelaWesley@wlcsd.org (Pam)
• sean.dougherty@oakland.k12.mi.us (Sean)

You don't have to complete the nomination alone! If you’re thinking of nominating someone, talk to your other colleagues to get input from multiple people. The more information you're able to give, the better. We recommend typing your responses in a word/google doc to copy and paste in the Google form when you are ready. Check out this Awards Criteria document to see what information will be requested. This is helpful to do before going into the nomination forms.

Thank you so much for all that you do!

The Oakland Counseling Association is only able to function and offer great benefits to our members as a result of our volunteer board members. We are always looking for new faces who would like to contribute to the leadership and continued service of this organization.

2024-2025 Open Board Positions Overview

• High School Counselor Representative
  
• Middle School Counselor Representative
• Member-at-Large

Please reach out to any of our current board members if you have questions.

Selina Abraham

Nicole Bell

Sean Dougherty

Elizabeth Germaine

Amanda Gohl

Albana Metaj

Kelly Messing-Mirabito

Ben Morin

Pamela Wesley

Kelley Yell

Email: oaklandcounselingassociation@gmail.com
Website: www.oaklandcounselors.org
Phone: ------------------------
Twitter: @OCACounseling