College of Education and Health Professions faculty member Julie Hill was invited to be a panelist at the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision's (ACES) annual conference in Philadelphia next month.

A committee of editorial board members for the ACES Teaching Practice Briefs selected Hill's as one of only four top briefs from all 34 published briefs across the six issues of the briefs.

Hill, an assistant professor of counselor education, co-authored "Incorporating Disability Knowledge and Content into the Counselor Education Curriculum" with Heather Delgado, an assistant professor in the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation and Counseling at Auburn University.

The top briefs were selected based on being "innovative, diverse and exceedingly valuable to our profession." The authors of these briefs were invited to join a panel discussion at the conference to share their innovative teaching practices.

"The article was meant to provide a how-to guide for counselor educators with little experience or knowledge of disability to incorporate disability content and knowledge across the counselor education curriculum," Hill said.

The article notes that disability awareness and content is a necessary part of any future counselor's training, but most counselors are not exposed to any disability content in their training program.

"With a growing number of individuals in the United States living with a disability, it is vital for all counselors to increase their knowledge, awareness and skills related to disabilities," the co-authors wrote.

The article has since become the inspiration and foundation for an upcoming special issue in the Rehabilitation Counselors and Educators Journal that covers each of the required Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) content areas and how to integrate disability content into the topic. CACREP is the premier accrediting body for determining the quality of a graduate counseling program.