OSU Counseling was honored to receive the 2022 Counseling Program award from the Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities (SAIGE), a division of the American Counseling Association (ACA). This prestigious and competitive award is presented to a counseling program that has demonstrated a commitment to the promotion of LGBTGEQIAP+ awareness and affirmation. The award will be presented to OSU counseling faculty at the national conference of the American Counseling Association this April.

Our program seeks to decrease barriers to entering and completing graduate school for students who identify as LGBTGEQIAP+, and to prepare counselors to counsel and advocate for clients who identify as LGBTGEQIAP+. As an example of this, in 2021 OSU counseling faculty assisted school counselors to implement Gender Identity Support plans to advocate for students who identify as gender expansive. What began as a program piloted at one elementary school quickly spread and is now used by school counselors in the second-largest school district in Oregon.