A member of the San Diego State University College of Education faculty will soon lead the rehabilitation counseling field’s top professional organization. Dr. Sonia Peterson, assistant professor in the Department of Administration, Rehabilitation, and Postsecondary Education (ARPE), has been elected president of the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA).
Peterson will be officially named president-elect starting July 1 and will serve a one-year term as president starting in July 2021.
Founded in 1957, ARCA’s mission is “to enhance the development of people with disabilities throughout their life span and to promote excellence in the rehabilitation counseling profession.” Peterson currently serves as ARCA’s Policy Chair and has twice attended summer leadership training for the American Counseling Association (ACA) — ARCA’s parent organization.
“My main agenda is to unite our profession,” said Peterson, who recently published a history of the rehabilitation counseling profession in the ACA’s magazine, “Counseling Today.” “I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.”
It’s an important time for unity, Peterson says, as the U.S. rehabilitation counseling field continues to adjust to a recent accreditation merger that placed it under the auspices of The Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs (CACREP). Her goal is to help CACREP integrate more disability-specific language into its core curriculum areas when they are revised in 2023.
“We can help CACREP be more recovery-model inclusive of people with disabilities,” Peterson said. “I think that as a field — and in our education program, with our social justice perspective — we're going to help CACREP.”
Peterson, who received her certificate in rehabilitation administration as an ARPE student, has taught at SDSU since 2011 and was named assistant professor last fall.