Our applied psychology degree in children’s advocacy is one of four programs nationally to achieve approval status by the Zero Abuse Project. At UMSL, you’ll have opportunities to:<br>Learn from experts in children’s advocacy. Your instructors have top degrees in the field plus years of experience serving in roles such as trauma-informed therapist, forensic interviewer, child protection attorney, community grant manager and executive director of the Child Advocacy Center.<br>Practice your skills in top-notch facilities. As an applied psychology and child advocacy major at UMSL, you’ll practice what you learn in our mock house simulation lab, where you’ll gather evidence and conduct interviews (with actors) for a child abuse investigation. (We also offer a virtual mock house should you take courses online.)<br>Learn while doing. In addition to a variety of classroom simulations gathering evidence, making safety assessments and more, we’ll help you land internships, service-learning opportunities on the Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux reservation and more to help you develop and hone your children’s advocacy skills.<br>At UMSL, our applied psychology of child advocacy studies degree program will prepare you to become a trauma-informed professional in a variety of child-serving sectors and fields, including psychology, social work, education, nursing and criminal justice. You’ll gain essential skills such as critical thinking and problem solving — and learn how to apply those skills in a variety of ways. This can help guide you to any number of career fields, depending on your interests and strengths as you complete your degree in applied psychology and children’s advocacy.<br>Graduates of our program go on to work in the field in a variety of settings, from nonprofit child protection services to law enforcement. Employment for social workers alone is projected to grow by 9% through 2031, adding thousands of jobs to the field each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.<br>Should you wish to continue your education after graduation, UMSL alumni have found success in a variety of fields, completing graduate programs in social work, counseling, school psychology, speech language pathology and law.