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| Dr. José A. Villalba, Ph.D. in Counselor Education and M.Ed. in School Guidance and Counseling, University of Florida; Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Tel: 336.334.3431 Email: javillal@uncg.edu |
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Biographical Information
Dr. José A. Villalba was born in Miami, Florida in 1973. As a child of Cuban and Colombian descent, Villabla's career naturally followed a path toward assisting the United States' burgeoning Latino population. When a position opened at UNCG in 2003, Villabla moved his family – wife, Rachel and son, Jacob - to North Carolina, a state that ranks among the nation's fastest growing Latino populations.
Dr. Villalba received his Ph.D. in Counseling and Counselor Education from the University of Florida in 2002. He worked for two years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling at Indiana State University, for one year as a counseling consultant and liaison at an inner-city high school in Miami, and for four years as an elementary school counselor in suburban Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Villalba's teaching interests include multicultural counseling, career counseling and development, group counseling, and school counseling internship supervision. His research interests include addressing the academic success of Latino students through school counseling interventions, establishing relevant school counseling interventions specifically aimed at Latino school children living in rural and non-rural Latino communities, increasing child and adolescent wellness, and consulting with Latino parents and families. Recently, he has become interested in the impact of physical and mental health disparities on rural Latino children, and how these disparities differ from their urban, Latino peers. This recent interest has resulted in NIH funding of almost $190,000 to study the benefits of mental and physical health interventions with Latino adolescents living in newer, rural Latino communities. Lastly, Dr. Villalba has published several articles in refereed counseling and nursing journals and has presented at national and international conferences related to the mental and physical strengths and needs of Latino children, adolescents, and families.
Dr. Villalba currently teaches as an assistant professor in UNCG's Department of Counseling and Educational Development where he specializes in school and multicultural counseling.
CNNC Research Fellow/
AmeriCorps ACCESS Project, Professional Corps Member, 2006-07
Villaba participated in the CNNC Research Fellows and AmeriCorps ACCESS Project Professional Corps initiatives in 2006-07. During that time, he worked on a project that centers on adding immigrant and refugee issues, concerns, experiences, and needs to the Multicultural Counseling Competencies. These Competencies, developed in 1992 and revised in 1996, are the counseling field's way of increasing awareness, knowledge, and skills related to counseling diverse populations. In the beginning, the writers of the Competencies intended the document to call attention to the nuances of working with African American, Asian American, Latina/o, and Native American clients. In 1996, when they were revised, the Competencies were widened to include women, sexual orientation, individuals with disabilities, older adults, religious differences, and social class. Villalba's contention is that first-generation immigrants and refugees, particularly newly-arrived individuals, experience unique and shared traits that need to be addressed by counselors and counselors-in-training. As a result, he is working on a manuscript for submission to the Journal of Counseling and Development which proposes adding "immigrants and refugees" to the Competencies discourse, in hopes of increasing the likelihood that multicultural counseling courses and instructors will include the distinct experiences of these individuals as they train and supervise counseling professionals.
Links
URL - www.uncg.edu/ced/faculty/villalba.html
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Counseling and Educational Development Departmental website with recent publications, research interests, awards, etc.
Research
Multimedia
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