Ellen Carruth
Professor, School of Education
Dr. Carruth has spent her career in the helping professions, and she has over 20 years of experience working in human services/community mental health and higher education. Currently, Dr. Carruth is a Professor and program director for the M.Ed in Counseling Program at The University of Puget Sound. Dr. Carruth is a National Certified Counselor (NCC), Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS), and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in Washington State. Since finishing her formal education, Dr. Carruth has spent time working in the mental health system in Washington and has used her experiences as a clinician to inform her practice as an instructor and clinical supervisor.
Counseling Experience
Ellen Carruth Counseling Services Seattle, WA
Provide counseling, supervision, and consultation to individuals and groups.
2017 - present
Sound Mental Health Seattle, WA
Clinical Case Manager
Case management and counseling for adults with chronic mental illness
2010 - 2011
Sound Mental Health Seattle, WA
Mental Health Crisis Specialist
Counseling and intensive case management for chronically and persistently mental ill adults and older adults
2008-2010
Course Syllabi
COUN 605: Professional Orientation and Ethical Practice
COUN 610: Cognitive Behavior Theory
COUN 646: Developmental Counseling
Research and Professional Interests
After completing her doctoral studies, she spent a few years working in community mental health. This experience allowed her to understand, firsthand, the barriers that her clients were facing, as well as the barriers faced by early-career mental health professionals. After achieving licensure, she accepted a full-time faculty position in counselor education, and she began a qualitative exploration of the impact of budget cuts on recovery for consumers of community mental health. She worked with a group of graduate students to develop the project, and to conduct initial focus groups with clinicians in community mental health. This experience informed her passion and desire to equip students with the tools of action research so that they could enter the field with skills to question and explore the barriers faced by consumers of community mental health.
Professionally, she is very interested in active engagement in her community. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Washington Mental Health Counselors Association and the Northwest Creative and Expressive Arts Institutes. Dr. Carruth maintains a supervision and consultation practice where she works with clinicians that are serving older adults, people with serious mental illness, and other consumers of community mental health.