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Unit counselor skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen,

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical unit counselor skills. We ranked the top skills for unit counselors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 19.0% of unit counselor resumes contained incident reports as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a unit counselor needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 unit counselor skills for your resume and career

1. Incident Reports

An Incident Report, in a medical facility such as hospitals and nursing homes, is a type of paperwork filled out immediately after and in the case of an incident of some sort, with the goal of describing the incident and its consequences, as well as the measurements taken after or during the incident, as well as any other information relevant to said incident. Such an incident might be a patient acting out or a patient being injured.

Here's how unit counselors use incident reports:

Completed daily logging, serious incident reports (SIR) medication documentation and other necessary paperwork in compliance with licensing requirements.
Completed all required clinical documentation including progress notes, incident reports, and data tracking according to agency policies.

2. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how unit counselors use mental health:

Worked as the primary operator for emergency services after hours for community mental health consumers and staff.
Experience - Works well with clients with substance abuse and mental health issues.

3. Substance Abuse

Here's how unit counselors use substance abuse:

Provide care to all adults with substance abuse problems.
Supervised children and adolescents with substance abuse and or psychosocial problems.

4. Conduct Orientation

Here's how unit counselors use conduct orientation:

Participate in or conduct orientation for new residents.
Conduct orientation/intakes for new clients.

5. CPI

CPI Consumer Price Index is a monthly comprehensive measurement of the prices of goods and services representing the economy's consumption expenditure. This presents the inflation or rising of prices and deflation or falling prices. CPI keeps track of the costs of around 700 goods and services utilized by a typical household, and CPI shows how their price change each month. The changes in CPI are used to assess price changes related to the cost of living.

Here's how unit counselors use cpi:

Supervised the well-being of Clients* Facilitate groups* Provide patient care* Crisis Prevention Intervention (CPI)* Medicaid billing
Minimize conflict that may result in crisis using CPI techniques and physical restraint if necessary to ensure safety.

6. Crisis Situations

Here's how unit counselors use crisis situations:

Use effective verbal intervention during crisis situations.
Monitored and enforcing rules and while applying safety and security measures when responding in emergency and crisis situations calmly and effectively.

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7. Therapeutic Environment

Here's how unit counselors use therapeutic environment:

Assist in developing and maintaining a therapeutic environment in a residential treatment facility for assigned residents according to policy and procedures.
Provide a physically and emotionally safe therapeutic environment and, intensive supervision and security for adolescents in the residential treatment program.

8. Individual Treatment Plan

Here's how unit counselors use individual treatment plan:

Implemented and assist in the completion of individual treatment plans and interventions.

9. Girl Scouts

Here's how unit counselors use girl scouts:

Acted as a positive role model to influence and encourage young girl scouts in their transition to young ladies Accomplishments/Skills.
Conflict Management, Advising counselors, Maintaining activity and break schedules for each unit, Upholding/teaching the Girl Scout Law.

10. Log Book

Here's how unit counselors use log book:

Keep daily inspection, and log book of all activity on units, during work shift.
Maintained and kept records in the log book on a daily basis.

11. Safety Regulations

Here's how unit counselors use safety regulations:

Observed camper behavior, assessed its appropriateness, enforced safety regulations and applied appropriate behavior management techniques.
Learn and help carry out health and safety regulations.

12. Group Therapy Sessions

Here's how unit counselors use group therapy sessions:

Provided individual counseling and co-facilitated group therapy sessions for adult offenders in an intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program.
Facilitated group therapy sessions focused on anger management, emotional and social coping issues with children and multifamily groups.

13. Family Sessions

Here's how unit counselors use family sessions:

Counseled patients in individual group and family sessions.
Facilitated 12 Step Groups Case Management Crisis Intervention Liaison between Clients and Nursing Staff Facilitated Family Sessions

14. Meal Preparation

Here's how unit counselors use meal preparation:

Provide direct care support including conducting personal cares, med administration, meal preparation, household tasks and documentation
Administered and managed medication, meal preparation, integrated consumers in art activities and community outings.

15. Correctional

Here's how unit counselors use correctional:

Worked closely with Correctional Officers to ensure facility protocol and patients/inmates adhere to procedures.
Prepared risk assessments and trained correctional officers on antisocial behaviors to reduce danger to other inmates and staff.

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What skills help Unit Counselors find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on unit counselor resumes?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

In Mental Health Counseling, the ability to work with people from various cultural backgrounds is paramount. Training in multicultural psychology, diversity, and inclusion are all essential in our pluralistic society. I would also emphasize training in empirically supported treatments and a clear theoretical orientation grounded in scientific literature. Finally, the recent pandemic has accelerated the use of teletherapy and remote counseling--effectiveness in connecting with people through technology and making the most of an adapted model for therapy will be very important.

What soft skills should all unit counselors possess?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills are important, including openness to work with people with varying religious views. The ability to easily connect with others and put people at ease in your presence is valuable in working with clients and collaborating with a treatment team. As more and more agencies interact with the medical field, spiritual leaders, and other holistic approaches to health, counselors need to see their role in an interdisciplinary approach to healing and work effectively with other departments. With teletherapy/virtual therapy, just the simple difficulty of creating eye contact when one's camera is not directly aligned with their viewscreen can complicate important connections in the therapeutic relationship. Learning to effectively connect through screens is essential.

What hard/technical skills are most important for unit counselors?

Treniece Lewis Harris Ph.D.

Associate Professor of the Practice, Program Director, Master's Program in Mental Health Counseling, Boston College

-Differential diagnosis to determine whether a person is experiencing an adjustment problem related to everyday life stressors or mental illness
-Knowledge and application of developmental and personality theory to human behavior.
-Experience in using multiple evidence-based psychotherapy models
-Psychological assessment, especially in neuropsychological testing
-Research design and implementation to study
-Program development
-Curriculum design and teaching skills

What unit counselor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Melissa Boas

Director of Professional School Counseling, Assistant Professor, Lancaster Bible College

I believe the most important skill to enhance if taking a gap year is self-awareness. Understanding oneself and why and how self-awareness directly relates to future career decision making is instrumental in ensuring the right decisions are made. Self-awareness is extremely beneficial in all areas of life not just in choosing a career pathway.

What type of skills will young unit counselors need?

Chris Hennington Ph.D.

School Counseling Program Coordinator, Lubbock Christian University

School counselors will be tasked with the usual school counseling responsibilities while also encountering trauma that students experience outside of school and in school. Being well versed in trauma response is going to be a vital aspect of being a school counselor. Kids are experiencing more trauma, but we are getting better at recognizing and treating trauma as well.

Do you want to know more?

List of unit counselor skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a unit counselor resume and required skills for a unit counselor to have include:

Incident Reports
Mental Health
Substance Abuse
Conduct Orientation
CPI
Crisis Situations
Therapeutic Environment
Individual Treatment Plan
Girl Scouts
Log Book

Safety Regulations
Group Therapy Sessions
Family Sessions
Meal Preparation
Correctional
FDIC
Role Model
Discharge Planning
Individual Sessions
Vital Signs

Conflict Resolution
Direct Care
Canoe
Anger Management
Law Enforcement
Children Ages
PowerPoint
Ethics
Behavioral Problems

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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