Felician Awarded NJPA Grant: Empowering Education and Innovation!

Felician University was awarded a 2020-2021 New Jersey Psychological Association (NJPA) Community Service Project Grant to help support the Franciscan Community Development Center in Fairview, NJ, a multi-disciplinary service center that works with an underserved population. The Center provides psychological services to individuals who cannot afford them while training doctoral students to work with underserved populations.

According to Daniel Mahoney, Ed.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of Graduate Counseling Psychology at Felician University, both the Community Development Center and Felician’s Doctor of Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.) Program, help prepare entry-level health service psychologists. “The programs are aligned with Felician’s Franciscan Values of respect for human dignity and service which are at the forefront of the Mission of Felician University,” said Dr. Mahoney.

The Community Service Project Grant program was developed for health care workers and communities dealing with the COVID 19 pandemic. “Due to the number of loses nurses are dealing with we partner up with local hospitals that have groups for nurses dealing with grief. We also help groups for the community dealing with loss, anxiety, and depression,” said Salvador Reyes, one of the programs three interns. To effectively reach as many people as possible, the sessions are conducted in both English and Spanish. This experience also allowed us to be part of a series of immigration assessment training that would benefit the underserved population. “This allowed us to help the population that we would otherwise not have the opening to,” said Reyes.

The focus of intern Estrevina Rivera was working with children and families which was particularly challenging during the pandemic as many in-person services were transferred to telehealth. “As a mental health professional, you had to learn how to conduct therapy using telehealth and how to engage children in this forum. This experience allowed me to realize the challenges the underserved population has accessing services,” said Rivera.

Marcela Farfan’s experience with the program included providing individual and group supervision to master level interns. “This experience allowed us to not only help the community but to be part of the community as well,” said Farfan.

The educational philosophy of the Doctor of Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.) Program at Felician University includes an appreciation for the value and uniqueness of the individual, a belief in the potential for each human being to flourish and achieve integrity and happiness, and an acknowledgment of the strengths of every individual.