Counseling Students Welcomed into NBCC Minority Fellowship Program

For Master of Counseling students Rey North and Cindy Ko, mental health work lies at the intersection of personal experience, identity, and advocacy for their communities. Rey and Cindy have been named as 2025 Fellows in the National Board for Certified Counselors Minority Fellowship Program, which aims to increase diversity in the counseling field by providing financial support to graduate-level counseling students who are committed to serving marginalized communities.

Rey North, a Master of Counseling in Clinical Mental Health student based in Springfield, Oregon, always knew that they wanted to be involved in the mental health world. After pursuing a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and engaging in personal mental health work, they dove into the program from “a client’s perspective, backed by interests in sociology, linguistics, anthropology, biology, and history.”  

Since enrolling in the Master of Counseling program, Rey found that the cohort model helped them create strong, supportive bonds with their peers. They also appreciated “the openness of the faculty and other professors...it’s been beyond refreshing to have professors welcome new viewpoints and acknowledge out-of-date or biased materials.” 

When asked what this fellowship means to them, Rey emphasized that as a fat liberation activist, the recognition of the minority population that they advocate for is extremely impactful. For the fellowship to affirm that “people in larger bodies are a marginalized group that has been proven to experience minority stress, stigmatization and discrimination...[it] gives them hope that some progress towards a less fatphobic world can be made.” In the future, Rey hopes to develop a training for counselors on world history and cultural knowledge, connecting their interest in culture and history with their counseling practice.

Cindy Ko, a Master of Counseling in Clinical Mental Health student based in Portland, Oregon, decided to pursue counseling after she saw a gap in counselors that understood her cultural identity and history. Her interest in counseling was also motivated by her exploration of her identity as a Taiwanese-American. After living in Taiwan, she began learning more about the political history of the country and her own family history, observing differences in culture between Taiwan and the United States, and tracing how “historical and generational trauma shows up today in [her] and [her] peers.”  

This led her to the counseling program at Oregon State University, where she was able to connect with students and faculty in her cohort and beyond through organizations such as Working Group for Disability Justice and Chi Sigma Iota. In the future, Cindy aims to continue working with professional organizations to support BIPOC counselors and counselors-in-training. She also hopes to develop culturally responsive group counseling for Asian clients and conduct research.  

Cindy shares, “I am interested in the counseling identity as something that is also one of collaboration with clients, of one as an activist, where healing does not stop with the individual client themselves but where it can ripple out into broader family and community.”

The NBCC Minority Fellowship is an invaluable opportunity to build connections and knowledge as they work to serve their communities through counseling. As more counselors such as Cindy and Rey are empowered to incorporate their interests and backgrounds into their practice, the mental health field becomes better equipped to serve people from all walks of life.