UNF Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Congratulations to our very own Program Director, Professor Tes Tuason who is this year’s runner up for Distinguished Professor at UNF! Dr. Tuason, who is born and raised in the Philippines, has built her career centered on resilience and transformative education. Her research focuses on economic inequality, minority identity formation and family and adolescent clinical issues using the systems perspective. She has authored more than 60 refereed publications and made more than 130 conference presentations.

We are so deeply grateful to our 10 CMHC UNF Alumni, who came and graced our Clinician's Panel last Tuesday, June 2nd. Each one of them shared their career journey, their sparkling moment in their professional lives, and the wisdom/resource/help for our soon-to-be graduates. Each one of them graduated within the years 2008-2025:
1. Jenny Batalla, LMHC
2. Joshua French, LMHC
3. Amanda Larson, LMHC
4. Kervin Isaac, LMHC
5. Hazel Zhang, M.S.
6. Adria Forte, LMHC
7. Erin Moran, LMHC, CCO
8. Virginia Foxworth, LMHC
9. Dr. Katie Wiggins, LMHC
10. Becky Gauntlett, LMHC, CCM, QS
Thanks to the CMHC family (2nd and 1st years), and our Social Work and Psychology colleagues who attended! We also appreciate Bella Stein and Anna Abarca (2nd years) who emceed the event!

Please apply!

The NBCCF Minority Fellowship Program changes lives by making Counselor Education accessible and giving students the resources they need to thrive. Mentors, conference opportunities, and a community of passionate Counseling professionals allow students to ask questions and learn professional skills. Doctoral- and master’s-level students are invited to apply at nbccf.org/programs.

We are celebrating UNF's partnership with UF! This includes writing a white paper on the efficacy of including dogs in the forensic interviewing space for children who've been suspected of abuse or neglect. This topic was presented at the FLAPSAC (Florida Professional Society on the Abuse of Children) conference in Tampa on May 29th. Four first year CMHC students: Samantha Boyce, Sarah Feinman, Alexis Dehetre, and Amanda Koppe worked together with Dr. Amy Binder and Dr. Carlene Taylor on the presentation. Mr Ruff and his dogs chimed in too! The conference was full of expert presenters and ground breakers in the field of child abuse and neglect prevention and forensic interviewing, which was definitely inspirational in this dedicated work to defend children.

Four of our CMHC 2nd yr. students, Luciana Nunez, Anna Abarca, Alexa Mejido, Sam McQuagge, and faculty, Drs. Terrell and Yanson completed the first half of the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) training last weekend. The training was hosted at Jacksonville University in partnership with the Women’s Center (WCJ) and ConnectEMDR. Some students were funded by the Graduate Research award, and the faculty were funded by the auxiliary funds provided by Dr. Taylor and the IBH special programs.

Huge shoutout to our CMHC faculty who bagged Excellence Awards at the Scholars Transforming Academic Research Symposium (STARS)! They are really our stars—- congratulations to Dr. Kassie Terrell for the High Impact Research Article Award and to Dr. Carlene Taylor for the Principal Investigator who submitted a proposal for the first time and received funding!

We are happy and excited to present our Chi Sigma Iota Board! We await with enthusiasm for the fun and meaningful adventures this Board will offer for 2026-2027!

P.S. about CSI: Special shout out to Dr. Yanson who is CSI's faculty advisor and Queen! What a year it was and what many meaningful activities for our community's mental health!

CSI Ceremony Part 2: In this ceremony, we honored our outstanding graduating class awardees:
Leadership: Payton Cooper
Advocacy: Alexa Mejido
Research: Hyerim Jeong
Clinical: Mikey Velarde
Community Champion: Justin Lin
We initiated our new CSI members, and we are celebrating our incoming CSI Board:
President: Grace Flatscher
Vice President: Gilbert Figueroa
Secretary: Lyla Blanchard
Treasurer: Cindy Saint-Louis
Professional Development Officer: Amanda Koppe
Mentorship Officers: Marissa Durnan and Afrianey Charelus
Fundraising Officer: Eyoatam Workneh
Social Media Officer: Harsh*ta Seth
We would like to thank all the faculty who attended, Drs. Terrell, Taylor, Wren, Yanson, and Tuason. Special shout out to Dr. Yanson who is CSI's faculty advisor!!!

CSI ceremony, part 1: Last May 1st, we celebrated our 15th annual initiation ceremony for the Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter of Chi Sigma Iota Counseling! We had our 6th annual awards ceremony where we honored our outstanding graduating class! We are so proud of our CSI chapter that won the CSI award! Congratulations to the outgoing CSI Board: Payton Cooper (President), Hannah Pentecost (VP), Maya Tadross (Sec), Justin Lin (Treasurer), Anna Abarca (Social Media), Sydney Smithson & Luciana Nunez (Mentorship), Alexa Mejido, Kelsey Rossi & Anna Dubon (Prof Dev), Sean Sorrick & Sam McQuagge (Fundraising)!