SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — Seton Hall University graduate counseling students Sierra-Katherine Brooks of Carlisle, Pa., and Shaheda Hall of Perth Amboy, along with alumna Veronica C. Ortiz of North Plainfield have been selected by the American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Program as Services for Transition Age Youth fellows.
Funded by a grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the STAY Fellowship was created to support the training of master’s-level practitioners in mental health services. This fellowship is designed for students in terminal master’s programs in psychology whose training prepares them to provide mental health services to transition-age youth — ages 16 through 25 — and their families. As part of the fellowship, the students will partake in specialized training during the Psychology Summer Institute in Washington, D.C., receive a stipend and membership to APA and a lifetime network of professional association with psychologists and other professionals focused on ethnic-minority behavioral health issues.
“The STAY fellowship demonstrates APA’s commitment to master’s-level training in counseling and related fields. It also reaffirms APA’s and the profession’s continued dedication to serving those most in need,” Margaret Brady-Amoon, associate professor and academic director of counseling programs in the Department of Professional Psychology and Family Therapy, said in a press release. “The fact that three Seton Hall counseling students were named as fellows speaks to the dedication of our students, faculty and the university.”
“My passion and calling in life is to help ethnic-minority children and adolescents so I instantly knew this was something I needed to work towards obtaining,” Ortiz, a domestic violence outreach worker in the Community Health Promotion Program at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, said in the release. “I found out about the fellowship from Dr. Brady-Amoon. She arranged for an information session to be held at Seton Hall by the director of the MFP that allowed me to enhance my application.”
Hall, who is on track to earn her degree this August, shared that she is excited to embark on this new journey.
“I truly hope to gain the knowledge and training I need to become a better professional. As an aspiring school counselor, I hope this fellowship helps mold me into a counselor who is truly effective in the lives of the students and parents I will get the pleasure of working with,” she said in the release. “I hope that it gives me the skills, training and resources needed to make a real difference.”
Ortiz, Hall and Brooks, a professional counseling student, credited the graduate counseling programs for preparing them for opportunities like the STAY Fellowship.
“My professors helped me find what I was good at and passionate about,” Brooks said in the release. “The program made me a better writer and student and gave me the tools and confidence I needed to apply for the fellowship and work in the field.”