Katie J. Yancey Receives Rural Scholarship from NBCC Foundation

May 23, 2016

Katie Yancey

Georgia Southern student Katie Yancey was recently awarded a $5,000 2016 NBCC Foundation rural scholarship by the NBCC Foundation, an affiliate of the National Board for Certified Counselors Inc.

Yancey, a native of Eastman, Georgia, will receive $5,000 to support her counseling education and recognize her commitment to the underserved. Yancey is both a student and graduate of Georgia Southern University, where she is currently pursuing a master’s degree in the school counseling program.

Upon graduation, Yancey intends to work as a school counselor in rural middle Georgia, where mental health services are often lacking. With this scholarship, she will not be burdened with the financial responsibilities of paying for tuition and education materials. This scholarship will also ensure that she will be able to attend conferences in her area that will help to increase her knowledge about the students she will be working with in the future.

“I am very thankful to receive the scholarship, and because of the scholarship, I will not have to take out any more loans for my last year of my degree, and I will be graduating next summer. It has ensured that my tuition is covered and my books will be paid for,” Yancey said. “Because of the NBCC, I have the opportunity to go to, and pay for, conferences that, without their help, would be out of my reach. Having their support has ensured that I will gain the knowledge to better serve the rural areas where I will be working.”

The mission of the NBCC Foundation is to leverage the power of counseling by strategically focusing resources for positive change. The Foundation created the rural scholarship in 2009 to improve access to counseling services in rural communities, which suffer disproportionately from a lack of mental health care. More than 40 students from across the country applied for the five 2016 rural scholarships.

The NBCC Foundation has also awarded five $5,000 military scholarships to increase the number of counselors serving fellow military personnel, veterans and their families. The Foundation plans to continue offering scholarships to increase the number of counselors in the areas where they are needed most and will open the next application period in September 2016. For more information or to make a gift in support of the Foundation’s mission, please visit www.nbccf.org.

The NBCC Foundation is the nonprofit affiliate of the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), based in Greensboro, North Carolina. NBCC is the nation’s premier professional certification board devoted to credentialing counselors who meet standards for the general and specialty practices of professional counseling. Currently, there are more than 60,000 National Certified Counselors (NCCs) in the United States and more than 50 countries. The Foundation’s mission is to leverage the power of counseling by strategically focusing resources for positive change.