Abstract
The United States is one of the largest host countries for international students in the world. Research has consistently shown that international students are faced with numerous concerns as a result of cross-cultural and cross-national transitions to the U.S. (Girmay & Singh, 2019; Mori, 2000; Pederson, 1991; Singaravelu & Pope, 2007; Smith & Khawaja, 2011;Yan, 2020). Even though there is strong support for prevalence of resulting mental health concerns among this population, students are not likely to seek psychological help due to prevalence of stigma, lack of culturally competent services, and unfamiliarity with counseling services (Mau & Jepsen, 1990).
Yoon and Tarell (2004) noted the lack of training in graduate schools focused on counseling of international students, which may, perhaps, be one reason as to why students often receive culturally incongruent services. Consequently, there is a strong need for training mental health professionals in counseling of international students, in particular, college counselors due to their availability, affordability, and physical proximity of these students. Therefore, this dissertation was aimed to develop a training curriculum for college mental health professionals to enhance service provision to international students. The training included a thorough review of literature and practice recommendations with an emphasis on topics of culture, acculturation, and counseling of international students. More importantly, the training focused on enhancement of cultural congruency in service provision to international students by incorporating multicultural and multinational competencies and considerations.