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138 The Professional Counselor \Volume 3, Issue 3 Another possibility for a mutually beneficial partnership is to offer group counseling services to the interna- tional student population at the counselor education program’s university. Often-times, international students are dealing with transition and acculturation issues similar to that of the RPCVs. Structured psychoeducational groups could provide needed information and time to process acclimation of international students to a differ- ent culture and educational system. Group counseling students would have the opportunity to increase their cultural awareness and develop appropriate culturally-sensitive interventions (Bodenhorn, DeCarla Jackson, & Farrell, 2005). This is just one other example of how group counseling students, group members, and counselor education programs can benefit from such partnerships. Counselor educators are encouraged to explore possible opportunities for similar partnerships with local agencies, schools and universities. Conclusion Research, professional standards, and accrediting bodies all indicate that an experiential group process is a crucial dimension of group counseling course curriculum. Group leadership further synthesizes and cements group counseling skills and processes learned throughout a group counseling course. While peer experiential groups are beneficial for students, conducting a structured psychoeducational group with non-peers may maxi- mize student learning by teaching valuable skills that can be transferred to clinical mental health and school settings. Conyne et al. (1997) stated that exemplary preparation programs often included experiential learn- ing opportunities, such as supervised students facilitating group counseling to non-students, and serving the community through their group work, both of which were utilized in the described partnership with the Peace Corps. Best practices also recommend that students gain experience counseling and serving diverse clients. Collab- orating with agencies whose employees and volunteers engaged in an international experience offers counselor educators the opportunity to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship: (a) group counseling students receive valuable supervised clinical experience serving clients with diverse experiences; and (b) clients receive needed assistance through difficult transitions. Partnering with an agency with an international focus may increase students’ multicultural competencies and help recruit diverse counselor education students to the preparation program. Overall, collaborating with the Peace Corp was a win-win situation for the described counselor educa- tion program: counseling students maximized their learning of group counseling skills within a multicultural- laden context, and RPCVs gained crucial services to assist in their life transition. References Akos, P., Goodnough, G. E., & Milsom, A. S. (2004). Preparing school counselors for group work. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work , 29 (1), 127–136. doi:10.1080/01933920490275637 American Counseling Association. (2005). ACA code of ethics . Alexandria, VA: Author. Anderson, R. D., & Price, G. E. (2001). Experiential groups in counselor education: Student atitudes and instructor participation. Counselor Education and Supervision , 41 (2), 111–119. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6978.2001.tb01275.x Association for Specialists in Group Work. (2000). Professional standards for the training of group workers . Retrieved from http://www.asgw.org/PDF/training_standards.pdf Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations , 29 (6), 697–712. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2005.07.013 Bodenhorn, N., DeCarla Jackson, A., & Farrell, R. (2005). Increasing personal cultural awareness through discussions with international students. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education , 17 (1), 63–68. Retrieved from http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE7.pdf