President's Welcome
Welcome to the Pennsylvania Counseling Association (PCA)! As a State Branch of the American Counseling Association (ACA), PCA accepts the responsibility to serve and represent Pennsylvania's professional counselors by providing leadership and professional development. The purpose of the Association is to enhance human development throughout the life span and to promote professional counseling.
I am deeply honored to serve as the President of the Pennsylvania Counseling Association (PCA) and accept the responsibility to represent Pennsylvania’s professional counselors. My vision for PCA includes promoting and advocating for multicultural issues in counseling, strengthening access to quality mental health services for clients across cultures, and recruiting and training a diverse membership that is representative of professional counselors in Pennsylvania.
I am very excited about the upcoming year for PCA! This year, the Executive Committee will continue the transition process to ACA handling our administrative and management services. ACA will provide PCA with telephone and reception services, a member services call center, mailroom and storage services, membership processing and reporting, website support and newsletter services. Please be advised that our fall 2010 newsletter will be coming to you via email and will be available electronically on the PCA website. It has become more efficient and cost effective to move the newsletter to an electronic format.
The Executive Committee will also continue to develop creative ways to recruit and increase membership within our Association. One strategy includes assessing professional counselors needs for their membership and involvement within professional organizations. By understanding the needs of professional counselors in Pennsylvania, PCA can continue to meet those needs. Additionally, PCA has developed a Supervision Registry that consists of a searchable list of supervisors who are willing to provide licensure supervision. The list will be available to PCA membership in the near future.
As professional counselors, we all must work together to provide effective comprehensive counseling services for our diverse populations in Pennsylvania. Thus, the theme for PCA this year is Counseling in a Multicultural World. This theme will be reflected in this year’s Annual Conference at Penn State University on October 15-17, 2010 where Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy will serve as our keynote speaker.
Additionally, learning institutes focusing on counseling the multiracial population, the athlete population and veterans will be provided. Our conference committee strived to select educational sessions that are also reflective of this year’s theme. For more information on the conference, please click on the link posted on our website.
As your incoming President, I look forward to working with all of you this year. Please feel free to contact me, or any members of the Executive Council, if you have any questions regarding PCA.
Taunya Marie Tinsley, Ph.D., NCC, LPC
PCA President