ACADEMICS | Nine Loyola Marymount University students in the Marital and Family Therapy master’s degree program have received stipend awards for this year from state and county mental health agencies, the College of Communications and Fine Arts announced.
This is the sixth year that LMU’s cohort of graduate MFT and art therapy students has proportionally received more state stipend awards than any other school in the Southern California region.
“I am forever inspired by how deserving our graduate students are – how thoughtful, hard working, creative and committed to addressing our social challenges they are,” said Einat Metzl, chair and associate professor of the Marital and Family Therapy Program. “The high percentage of awardees of these competitive stipends, this year as in previous years, is an illustration of that.”
The California Department of Mental Health and Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health both award post-graduate stipends in the amount of $18,500 each. Stipend recipients go on to work in public mental health agencies, providing culturally sensitive and linguistically capable services to at-risk populations served by community mental health clinics.
“The stipend program has been very successful at increasing diversity in the mental health field,” said Kathleen Fogel-Richmond, practicum coordinator of the Marital and Family Therapy Program. “It mirrors the goal we have at LMU to promote social justice by recruiting and training students to serve those in the community who are most vulnerable, marginalized and underserved.”
LMU’s Marital and Family Therapy Department offers an innovative, art-based graduate program that leads to a Master of Arts degree in Marital and Family Therapy with specialized training in Clinical Art Therapy. The students integrate their visual arts background with psychotherapeutic skills to become practicing marital and family therapists committed to utilizing art processes in their clinical work. With the Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic, the Art Therapy in Mexico Summer Program and the Institute for Art Therapy Inquiry, the department maintains an enduring commitment to service, multiculturalism and scholarship.
“I am exceedingly proud of this group for receiving so many stipend awards,” said Bryant Keith Alexander, Ph.D., dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts. “These impressive students will be able to use these funds to do important work in our community, providing crucial mental health services to populations that often need them the most.”
