After a months-long hiring process, Wake Forest’s University Counseling Center (UCC) has added four counselors to its staff to assist with an anticipated high demand for counseling this fall.

One of the new faculty members at the UCC began work in August, two will begin in September and the final counselor will begin in October. The UCC will then have two remaining positions to fill, though this will not necessarily occur during the Fall 2021 semester.

“We want to fill the positions as quickly as we can, but it is also important to us that we also continue to make good choices for our community,” UCC Director Dr. Warrenetta Mann said. “That may mean waiting on the right candidate.”

Since taking over as director, Mann has had a prominent role in the Center’s hiring process. She noted that one factor contributing to the need for new UCC faculty is the impact COVID-19 pandemic has had on therapists’ ability to engage with their clients.

While therapists normally sustain their work-life balance by trying to “remain as mentally and emotionally healthy as possible,” Mann explained, the pandemic has created personal challenges for mental health professionals that make focusing on and helping to solve the problems of others more difficult.

“Many [therapists] have had to step away or shift the focus of their work to remain resilient,” Mann said.

The UCC publicly posted the open positions in April 2021 to begin finding therapists who wanted to work with college students and were willing to move to Winston-Salem from afar. It has also publicly committed to an equitable, intersectional approach to counseling that focuses on the needs of students in marginalized communities.

“Our commitment to social justice, anti-racism and dismantling oppressive systems compels us to center the needs of students with marginalized identities, as they are likely to be suffering the most significant impact of the pandemic with the least access to resources,” the UCC website says.

“Our commitment to social justice, anti-racism and dismantling oppressive systems compels us to center the needs of students with marginalized identities, as they are likely to be suffering the most significant impact of the pandemic with the least access to resources,” the UCC website reads.

In pursuit of this vision, the UCC searched for candidates that were clinically competent, had the appropriate licensure/credentials and enjoyed working with college-aged clients who make up a diverse student body. 

After receiving responses to the initial job posting, the UCC hiring team reviewed all of the applications and chose the best ones to participate in a round of interviews. After both a phone and  Zoom interview, the remaining candidates came to campus to meet members of the Wake Forest community.

Throughout this competitive hiring process, what set the candidates that were ultimately hired apart was their ability to envision how they and their clinical styles would fit into the UCC.

Once everyone involved in the hiring process had deliberated, the top candidates were offered positions — most of the filled positions have been for the job of general therapist.

“There is no doubt that new staff will change things,” Mann said. “[There will be] new talent, new expertise, new energy and new opportunities for helping students succeed.”