DePaul University Counseling Services (UCS) is committed to providing culturally sensitive services to the campus community and developing the multicultural capacities of its staff. Given the diversity of our student population, help-seekers come to Counseling Services with varied experiences specific to their racial and ethnic membership, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, social class, immigration status, size, religious affiliation, nationality, and/or disability status. We also remain mindful of the intersecting nature of social identities. Consistent with our Vincentian mission and values, we recognize and affirm the dignity of all persons and strive to create a community where all can flourish. As such, we strive to offer services and programs that are inclusive, and give voice to these varied experiences, by providing a space to be heard, appreciated, and accepted.
We celebrate the rich diversity that exists in our campus community. As a community, our lives are interconnected, and we benefit when we encourage awareness, respect, acceptance, understanding, and an appreciation of our differences and similarities. By fostering these processes, our hope is that students, faculty, staff and others in our community will broaden their scope of awareness, develop empathy for different perspectives and life experiences, challenge stereotypes and biases, and serve as models for civility and social justice.
The Counseling Services staff has extensive experience with providing support services to individuals of varying social identities and backgrounds. We know that only through an awareness of ourselves as cultural beings can we hope to understand and help others. Therefore, to enhance our knowledge, and skills, we routinely engage in continuing education programs, trainings, and workshops. Our commitment to diversity is an ongoing and open-ended journey; as such, we frequently seek opportunities to challenge our own privileges and biases. Furthermore, clinical training in diversity and multiculturalism provided to our doctoral level Externs is integral to the mission of DePaul University Counseling Services.
"Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization."
- Mahatma Gandhi