Beyond the Seal of Biliteracy: The Development of a Bilingual Counseling Proficiency at the University Level

In this article, the authors propose that California’s Seal of Biliteracy for high school seniors can serve as an exemplar to advocate for the continued development of bilingual skills in university, graduate-level students—and counseling students in particular. Citing literature that points to the need for linguistic diversity among counselors in school and community agencies, the authors describe the efforts taken by the Counseling Program in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in partnership with LMU’s Center for Equity for English Learners to address the need. Their pilot of a Certificate of Bilingual Counseling in Fieldwork (CBC-F) involved the development and testing of proficiency rubrics that adhered to current standards for teaching foreign languages and simultaneously measured professional competencies in counseling. Results of the CBC-F pilot with five female Latina students in the counseling program at LMU in the spring of 2017 appeared promising and were described in detail. These findings have implications for preparing and certifying professionals in other fields with linguistic and cultural competencies in response to current demographic shifts.