Hi, I'm looking for some volunteer counseling opportunities in Dallas

[zoelee]

Hi there, I'm looking for some volunteer counseling opportunities in Dallas.

I've been volunteering online, and enjoy providing support to emotionally stressed out people via online chat. In fact, this experience is so positive, it makes me want to have a career change and go back to school to become a counselor. But before jumping in with both feet, I would like to find some in-person counseling volunteer opportunities. Even though I love and are confident volunteering online, I'm aware that in person would probably be quite different. I'm an introvert with social anxiety, so this makes trying out in-personal counseling more important for me.

I checked out the websites of local mental health centers. But they only take students who are already in a counseling program, or licensed counselors.

Anyone know any places in the DFW (prefer north of Dallas like Plano, Frisco, Allen) area where someone like me can volunteer? I'm more than willing to take onsite job training.

Best,

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[PsyDr]

are you really saying you are practicing a licensed profession without a license... in writing?!

 

[dynamicdog]

I am in no way familiar with your geographic location- but, in general there are seldom clinical /counseling positions, paid or volunteer, for unlicensed/untrained individuals. This is because it is outright unethical and dangerous to be providing this services without the proper training and supervision. Most people gain experience before graduate school by either engaging in research or through allied/related jobs that are appropriate for the person's level of training. I've heard of people volunteering for suicide hotlines, where I believe you are given on site training and supervision.

 

[zoelee]

are you really saying you are practicing a licensed profession without a license in writing?!

Hi Psydr, no, that's not what I'm saying. And I'm not comfortable being accused of that by someone who's studying to become a counseling professional (my assumption, might be wrong). How about some understanding and willingness to help?

Anyway, I'm not looking for a "counseling" job, but something that would give me a taste of what is like to talk to someone with emotional distress, e.g. a greeter/receptionist at a mental health shelter, where I can quickly chat with him a little bit before a professional takes over. Sort of like what Dynamicdog said about the suicide hotline.

I applied for the local suicide hotline but didn't get in. Might have to keep trying, since it seems like that's the only option for a non-student/non-licensed counselor.

 

[PsyDr]

Hi Psydr, no, that's not what I'm saying. And I'm not comfortable being accused of that by someone who's studying to become a counseling professional (my assumption, might be wrong). How about some understanding and willingness to help?...

And I'm not comfortable with having an untrained, unlicensed person engaging in "in-person counseling", in violation of state law. Having someone tell you that you might be breaking law, while unpleasant, is helping.

 

[zoelee]

And I'm not comfortable with having an untrained, unlicensed person engaging in "in-person counseling", in violation of state law. Having someone tell you that you might be breaking law, while unpleasant, is helping.

didn't say that. I am not looking for a counselor job. I am looking for something I could do as a person w/o college training nor license, but willing to take on job training.

On a second thought, unless you were referring to my online volunteering. No, that was not practicing, just chatting, active listening. To people who are not ready to see a professional, who cannot afford to start or continue, or in addition to. The website offers training.

 

[PsyDr]

Yeah, I must have completely misread the title:
"Hi, I'm looking for some volunteer counseling opportunities in Dallas"

and when you wrote, "...I would like to find some in-person counseling volunteer opportunities." I must have missed something.

I honestly think you didn't understand that what you were looking for is illegal and now you're changing things up. Hopefully you have learned, because it would be easier than having a licensing board come after you.

 

[Justanothergrad]

someone who's studying to become a counseling professional (my assumption, might be wrong).

You're wrong.

Also, he means well and has a point. Psydr has a great understanding for liability and potential trouble and while the phrasing might seem nuanced between what you said and what you meant, he is correct that wanting to do volunteer counseling without a could easily would qualify as a problem. There are lots of volunteer, supportive positions out there (you mentioned the suicide hotline, there are others as well- camp counselors, etc.). The fact is that you won't be doing therapy, in its broadest and fullest sense, in these roles so it wont give you a full sense of what that is like as a career. It may let you taste some of it, but you won't be a counselor/therapist/psychologist, nor will you have the full scope of their responsibilities from it.

You might get more from shadowing.

 

[zoelee]

I see. "counseling experience" makes you think I wanted to practice like a licensed counselor. I guess "counseling" carries a lot of weight (legal) to a professional like yourself than an average joe like me. If you read the content of my post, you would understand I was using that word loosely.

 

[zoelee]

You're wrong.

Also, he means well and has a point. Psydr has a great understanding for liability and potential trouble and while the phrasing might seem nuanced between what you said and what you meant, he is correct that wanting to do volunteer counseling without a could easily would qualify as a problem. There are lots of volunteer, supportive positions out there (you mentioned the suicide hotline, there are others as well- camp counselors, etc.). The fact is that you won't be doing therapy, in its broadest and fullest sense, in these roles so it wont give you a full sense of what that is like as a career. It may let you taste some of it, but you won't be a counselor/therapist/psychologist, nor will you have the full scope of their responsibilities from it.

You might get more from shadowing.

Thanks Justanothergrad! Is Well - camp = wellness camp? whom does it deal with? Well, a small taste is better than nothing. At this point I cannot afford going back to school full time for 4-6 years for a degree, just to find out that this profession is not for me. Too costly.

Will a counselor let people shadow them? I cannot imagine my therapist walk in with another person to my session. Although medical docs do this all the time.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Nope, that's me multi-tasking and messing up. I was saying doing 'summer camp counselor' roles or working at the boys/girls club. It gives you some sense, but not a great sense. Be aware that you won't get a sense of what a psychologist does by doing a crisis hotline or anything similar because thats not who does that.

You may want to reach out and do an informational interview with practitioners in your area (perhaps talk to a VA psychologist, someone at a medical center, etc.). Ask what their day is like, figure out the details from them about the job, what the ups/downs are, etc. Do this rather than proxying in experience from something that isn't the same. You are likely not going to get a chance to sit in on therapy, but you may get a chance to do some volunteer work on a residential unit doing non-therapy stuff, but you'll start to see the type of work folks are doing and what it can be like. It isn't 'counseling', but you arent a therapist. Relatedly, others may wanna know what its like to be a heart surgeon, but they'll have to imagine some of it until they get there.

 

[zoelee]

Thanks again, Justanothergrad. BTW, you seem to be active in this forum for quite a while. Are you still just another graduate student? Or you are practicing already?

Anyway, yes I agree, boy/girl camp might be a stretch in terms of tasting the counseling job.

I would think the suicide hotline is a bit closer. I wanted to focus on emotional disorders, such as depression, anxiety, OCD, etc, the chance of talking to someone with one of these issues via the hotline is high, I would imagine.

As far as interviewing professionals, I did interview my own therapist. But that didn't do much. Listening to someone talking about what they do, is light years away from sampling that job yourself.

I know professionals will oppose this, but I happen to know someone who's leading a workshop for people with emotional issues. She quitted her 200k tax director job to do this. She's not licensed, not even with any training, but she is smart enough to not call herself anything remotely close to a counselor, but in my opinion, the approaches she's using are all pretty common methods from the counseling world. When asked about her future plan, she mentioned registering as a non-profit religious org. I'm not saying that's what I wanted to do, or advocating for that, I wanted to say, now I understand why she did what she did. Because there are no other ways to do a counseling-like work without going through years of school programs and get licensed. You can't even find something that let you have a taste. (as opposed to, say, chef. If I wanted to be a chef, I could start from the very bottom, like slicing and dicing the ingredient, but at least I am in that environment, I work alongside the chef, I practically shadow him and learn that way).

Yes there might be liability issues, legal issues, whatever you call it, but the workshop has been going on for three years, the size is growing. Yes this is gaming the system, but now I can see why she chose to go that way.

Back to wanting to find volunteer opps to taste the job, I got in touch with the local suicide hotline manager again. I thought I was not picked due to disqualification last year, but turned out my application got "misplaced" during the interview process. Will apply again. I appreciate everyone's input.

 

[WisNeuro]

I know professionals will oppose this, but I happen to know someone who's leading a workshop for people with emotional issues. She quitted her 200k tax director job to do this. She's not licensed, not even with any training, but she is smart enough to not call herself anything remotely close to a counselor, but in my opinion, the approaches she's using are all pretty common methods from the counseling world.

She can call herself whatever she wants, if she is actually acting as a counselor/therapist without a license, there is a HUGE liability issue. She can be sued. If an adverse event were to happen to anyone under her "care" she actually may be criminally liable. We're not saying this in a "protecting our turf" kind of way. We're saying that this sounds illegal. Like, serving prison time illegal.

 

[zoelee]

Hi WisNeuro, you are absolutely right. Cannot agree more.

Could you, though, elaborate what "acting as a counselor/therapist" entails? I know you cannot prescribe if you are not a psychiatrist. But what about other things, like, organizing volunteering activities at a local soup kitchen, instruct people to do breathing exercise to relax, suggest them to pray on a daily basis, etc.

It seems the line can be blurry at times.

 

[zoelee]

On an unrelated count, seeing the replies from everyone here actually gives me a tiny taste of what's like working along other mental health professionals. For example, one might fancy that counseling is all about helping people, 100% of your time. But in fact, a good chunk of your time is dealing with legal/liabilities, and different opinions from your colleagues. But I guess that is true for any profession.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I know professionals will oppose this, but I happen to know someone who's leading a workshop for people with emotional issues. She quitted her 200k tax director job to do this. She's not licensed, not even with any training, but she is smart enough to not call herself anything remotely close to a counselor, but in my opinion, the approaches she's using are all pretty common methods from the counseling world. When asked about her future plan, she mentioned registering as a non-profit religious org. I'm not saying that's what I wanted to do, or advocating for that, I wanted to say, now I understand why she did what she did. Because there are no other ways to do a counseling-like work without going through years of school programs and get licensed. You can't even find something that let you have a taste. (as opposed to, say, chef. If I wanted to be a chef, I could start from the very bottom, like slicing and dicing the ingredient, but at least I am in that environment, I work alongside the chef, I practically shadow him and learn that way).

Yes there might be liability issues, legal issues, whatever you call it, but the workshop has been going on for three years, the size is growing. Yes this is gaming the system, but now I can see why she chose to go that way.

Would you want an aspiring surgeon working on you? How about a hopeful neurologist reading your imaging? Maybe be an amateur bridge builder because you don’t really know it until you get in there and do it.

There are laws and regulations for s reason. An amateur counselor could ruin people’s lives. There are bad LICENSED clinicians who ruin their patient’s lives, how do you think someone with no training or formal education would go? Would you want a family member seeing an amateur counselor? What if they were suicidal...are you willing to bet their life that the person with zero training, mentorship, or supervision would make the right choices to help them effectively?

 

[WisNeuro]

Could you, though, elaborate what "acting as a counselor/therapist" entails? I know you cannot prescribe if you are not a psychiatrist. But what about other things, like, organizing volunteering activities at a local soup kitchen, instruct people to do breathing exercise to relax, suggest them to pray on a daily basis, etc.

It seems the line can be blurry at times.

Organizing volunteer activities or leading group mindfulness or breathing exercises is fine. Anyone can do that. But, when you are actually specifically treating psychiatric conditions like depression/OCD/anxiety/etc, with therapeutic techniques, you are acting as a clinician. And, when you take on the role of a clinician, you take on the role of liability associated with it. It's the reason why my hospital has an insurance policy on me for 1/3 million dollar coverage and that I have my own policy for a similar amount.

 

[PsyDr]

...You can't even find something that let you have a taste. (as opposed to, say, chef. If I wanted to be a chef, I could start from the very bottom, like slicing and dicing the ingredient, but at least I am in that environment, I work alongside the chef, I practically shadow him and learn that way).

So I was right.

Your example is important. If you want to cook, you can absolutely slice and dice AT HOME. If you do this in a professional setting, most states requires a food safety license. Same for bar-tending. If you want to talk to a friend when they are stressed out, you can do so at home. If you want to do this in a professional setting, you need a license.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Hi WisNeuro, you are absolutely right. Cannot agree more.

Could you, though, elaborate what "acting as a counselor/therapist" entails? I know you cannot prescribe if you are not a psychiatrist. But what about other things, like, organizing volunteering activities at a local soup kitchen, instruct people to do breathing exercise to relax, suggest them to pray on a daily basis, etc.

It seems the line can be blurry at times.

People do tend to blur the lines. Sometimes in a desire to be helpful and sometimes in a desire to make money. Also, since most people don't really understand what it is we do that is different from talking to a friend and it is difficult to explain in a soundbite, then many people think they can do our job. This post points out one big difference...

On an unrelated count, seeing the replies from everyone here actually gives me a tiny taste of what's like working along other mental health professionals. For example, one might fancy that counseling is all about helping people, 100% of your time. But in fact, a good chunk of your time is dealing with legal/liabilities, and different opinions from your colleagues. But I guess that is true for any profession.

There is some truth here, but unlike other professions, part of our profession (especially as psychologists as opposed to other therapists) is to take into account and develop competency or even expertise in legal and ethical issues related to mental health.

We don't expect you to know this stuff necessarily as a student, but at times we get a bit frustrated with people thinking they can do our job when they don't even really know what we do.
Another taste of how we work and conceptualize some of these complex issues can be found in this thread
questions about diagnostic considerations
I like to use my own mistakes as both learning and teaching examples.

 

[zoelee]

Thanks smalltownpsych, interest thread. I see how complicated things can be even for licensed professional.

This makes me wonder how the psychological world sees those Self Help gurus, e.g. Eckhart Tolle, Debbie Ford, and many many more.

They are not trained/licensed, but they surely have "invented" theories to deal with emotional /psychological problems, or they claim so, and surely have a lot of followers (many are Oprah's show guests). I wonder if they ever got into legal disputes. I can totally see some of their followers take them to court because they followed what was said in their books. But I've never heard of such scandals.

 

[WisNeuro]

Writing a self-help book, or leading a seminar, if a far cry from treating an individual person. Way different from a liability standpoint.

 

[singasongofjoy]

You could also consider volunteering with a rape/assault crisis center. I did that while I was in college. It was more of a supportive role, you're not doing any counseling per se, but it was good practice in being a positive support when someone is in crisis and we got what I thought (and still think) was quite good training at my location (including about what questions not to ask, how to not ask any questions that could muddy an investigation, etc). My role would be to be on call on some nights and weekends, and meet person at the hospital to support them through that process, take their information so the crisis center could follow up with them in the morning, make sure they had somewhere safe to go after they were finished, etc. Different than the suicide hotline because it was in person.

 

[zoelee]

Thanks very much singasongofjoy! Great idea. I'll look it up.

 

[FlygirlPhD]

When I was deciding whether I wanted to pursue clinical psychology, I volunteered in a psychiatric hospital (some won’t let you volunteer in this environment because of liability, but some do). I got to chat with patients, help them with art projects, and offer support. It was great and helped me realize I’d love this field of work.

At my current hospital, we have “peer support specialists,” that get training and supervision but are not licensed professionals. They have psychiatric conditions themselves and have been in recovery. They lend patients an understanding ear, which I think can be of great help.

There are lots of great ways to get contact with patients and be supportive without actually doing counseling or therapy. I’d argue that if you go these routes, you’d be practicing the most important thing when preparing to be a therapist- being a genuine person and offering a warm, empathetic connection to someone who is going through a tough time. Best of luck!!

 

[singasongofjoy]

I did an undergrad practicum-type deal at a halfway house. That might be an optoin to consider.

 

[zoelee]

Thanks very much FlygirlPhD. This is what I was hoping to be able to do. But it seems it varies a lot depending on the place. I'll probably have to call each individual place to find out.

Which state/city was that when you volunteered?

 

[FlygirlPhD]

Thanks very much FlygirlPhD. This is what I was hoping to be able to do. But it seems it varies a lot depending on the place. I'll probably have to call each individual place to find out.

Which state/city was that when you volunteered?

I did my volunteering at Capital District Psychiatric Center in Albany, NY. They love their volunteers!

 

[mypointlesspov]

Not sure about the DFW area, but maybe there is something similar there. I participated in the Guardian Advocate program when I was in undergrad in Florida. The training was open to the public, but volunteers received it for free. The position was voluntary to cover us under Good Samaritan laws. Essentially, we were assigned to people who were involuntarily hospitalized and we were asked to serve as their court-appointed advocate and make medical decisions for them. We were asked to attend treatment team meetings and meet with the patient at least a few times a week to make informed treatment decisions. If you google "Guardian Advocate Florida" I'm sure you can find info about it (can't link due to account requirements).

 

[singasongofjoy]

Not sure about the DFW area, but maybe there is something similar there. I participated in the Guardian Advocate program when I was in undergrad in Florida. The training was open to the public, but volunteers received it for free. The position was voluntary to cover us under Good Samaritan laws. Essentially, we were assigned to people who were involuntarily hospitalized and we were asked to serve as their court-appointed advocate and make medical decisions for them. We were asked to attend treatment team meetings and meet with the patient at least a few times a week to make informed treatment decisions. If you google "Guardian Advocate Florida" I'm sure you can find info about it (can't link due to account requirements).

That sounds awesome. I think that's a great suggestion!

 

[zoelee]

Not sure about the DFW area, but maybe there is something similar there. I participated in the Guardian Advocate program when I was in undergrad in Florida. The training was open to the public, but volunteers received it for free. The position was voluntary to cover us under Good Samaritan laws. Essentially, we were assigned to people who were involuntarily hospitalized and we were asked to serve as their court-appointed advocate and make medical decisions for them. We were asked to attend treatment team meetings and meet with the patient at least a few times a week to make informed treatment decisions. If you google "Guardian Advocate Florida" I'm sure you can find info about it (can't link due to account requirements).

Hi pointless, thanks very much for your information.

You mentioned this volunteer job is to help the patients make medical decisions. Does it require considerately amount of medical knowledge? I am not sure if I am competent. It would be great if patients are with emotional issues.