2005 Mary Corre Foster Community Counseling Award

Randy Strunk

Nominated by Al Lewis 

IKRON is a rehabilitation community agency whose primary focus is outpatient mental health services and substance abuse treatment.  It offers special programs and counseling groups for persons with co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders.  It strives for excellence in implementing therapeutic activities and clinical services to under-served and diverse populations.

Through the vision of Randy Strunk, IKRON has opened its doors to all the universities in the Tri-state area as an internship site.  Students in Doctoral programs in Psychology and Master's programs in Counseling are afforded an opportunity to work with this special population.  Students are given one hour a week of group supervision and one hour a week of individual supervision, in tandem with Randy Strunk and/or the Clinical Director, Dr. Mary Moster.  Students are given intensive training in diagnostic assessment and tested before they are allowed to practice.  Then students are permitted to perform intakes, diagnostic assessments, group and individual counseling.  There are always 5-8 interns each quarter/semester.  There is a 90% passing rate for all interns from IKRON who take the State exam for PC.  The intern training is intended to augment and enhance clinical skills by emphasizing advanced competence in treatment planning, diagnostic evaluation, and intervention strategies.

About 10 interns annually successfully complete internships of various lengths.  Through his vision, Randy Strunk has opened his agency and become a trainer of counselors, truly a "counselor educator" on the front lines.  So, for these reasons and many more, I nominate Randy Strunk for the Mary Corre Foster Award.

Al Lewis, MA, PC