From Crisis to Classroom

When Stephanie Dailey came to Hood College as an assistant professor, she brought with her a wealth of experience and knowledge. Beyond her extensive academic experience, she has chaired several presidential task forces and committees for the American Counseling Association (ACA), serves as the ACA liaison to the American Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Partners, and is an expert on disaster mental health and ethics for counselors. In fact, when teaching this semester, she found herself cited in the updated version of the textbook her class was using.

Dailey started as community crisis mental health counselor, working mostly with adults diagnosed with severe mental illness and complex trauma. Her interest in the ethical boundaries for counselors started when she “found that ethics codes didn’t cover many situations.” She currently specializes in crisis/trauma and disaster mental health. As the liaison between the ACA and the Red Cross, she works to find counselors for people impacted by large-scale disasters. She is the former co-chair of the ACA ethics committee and past president of the Association of Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Issues in Counseling(ASERIC) and co-chaired their ethics committee. Stephanie is also the main author of the DSM-5 Learning Companion for Counselors. She has done research on shelter in place, crisis intervention and ethics, and is currently researching trauma and the Boston Bombing. On average, Dailey presents at five conferences a year, mostly on ethical issues in and for counseling.

She started her higher education journey at Argosy University, where she earned her Ed.D (Doctor of Education) in Counseling in 2011 and served as director of training in the counseling program for six years. As a professor, she likes to “build on what students know is language and experiences, using examples and learning styles that make sense for them.” She tries to gauge their response and structure her teaching based on the students in the class.

Dailey started at Hood in August 2017 but already loves the small liberal arts feel and community.

“I feel like even though I may not know everyone yet, I recognize people and this is a community. I have two small children and this is such a family friendly place. I feel like they will grow up here and I love that."

Dailey was initially attracted to Hood because of “the growing program. This [counseling] program has truly been set up very well to succeed." As she spends more time here, she has realized that Hood has “great administrative support. Students are fantastic and excited to be here. Hood is definitely a teaching institution.”