Melanie Minges, Ph.D., LPC, NCC

Dr. Melanie Minges, Ph.D., LPC, NCC, is the Director and Assistant Professor of the Master’s Program in Professional Clinical Counseling at La Salle University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with over a decade of experience in clinical practice, community mental health, and crisis intervention. Her background includes extensive work with individuals experiencing severe and persistent mental illness, trauma, and co-occurring disorders, as well as those navigating high-acuity behavioral health crises. Before joining La Salle, Dr. Minges served as Program Manager for the District of Columbia, where she led the development and expansion of the city’s first behavioral health and law enforcement co-response program, integrating clinicians directly into crisis response operations. She also played a key role in the creation and early implementation of the District’s 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, helping to shape its coordination with local crisis and emergency systems.

Dr. Minges’ trauma expertise centers on the impact of crisis exposure and secondary trauma on behavioral health professionals. Her research examines how self-efficacy and organizational factors influence practitioner well-being and mitigate burnout and secondary traumatic stress. She applies trauma-informed and public health frameworks to promote prevention, early intervention, and systems-level reform bridging mental health and social service systems to strengthen behavioral health care delivery. She has published peer-reviewed articles on posttraumatic growth, psychological distress, intimate partner violence, and health disparities, and she regularly presents at national conferences. Dr. Minges is passionate about preparing the next generation of counselors through experiential learning, evidence-based practices, and a strong grounding in ethics and cultural humility.

Areas of Expertise

• Behavioral health crisis response and systems of care
• Burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and practitioner well-being
• Protective and moderating factors in behavioral health (self-efficacy, resilience, organizational support)
• Crisis-related and secondary trauma among helping professionals
• Public health and trauma-informed approaches to behavioral health systems
• Program innovation, evaluation, and behavioral health leadership
• Cross-sector collaboration between law enforcement and behavioral health

Education 

• Ph.D. in Counseling Education and Supervision, The George Washington University
• M.A. in Mental Health Counseling, Bowie State University
• B.A. in Sociology (Concentration: Criminology), State University of New York at Cortland

Certifications

• Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), District of Columbia
• National Certified Counselor (NCC)
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification

Teaching

• PCC 512: Addictions Counseling
• PCC 601: Grief, Loss, and Trauma Counseling
• Past teaching experience (GWU): Substance Abuse and Addictions Counseling, Trauma and Crisis Intervention, Individual Assessment in Counseling, Diagnosis and Treatment Planning, Counseling Interview Skills

Publications

• Pittman, D. M., Quayson, A., Riedy, C., & Minges, M. (2019). Revisiting resilience: Examining the relationships between stress, social support, and drinking behavior among Black college students with parental substance use disorder histories. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse.
• Pittman, D. M., Rush, C. R., Litt, S., Minges, M., & Quayson, A. (2021). Examining psychological distress as a primer for sexual risk taking among emerging adults. International Journal of Sexual Health.
• Pittman, D., Reidy, C., & Minges, M. (2020). Double jeopardy: Intimate partner violence vulnerability among emerging adult women through lenses of race and sexual orientation. Journal of American College Health.

Presentations

• Minges, M., Dorrough, J., & Havlin, D. (2024, March 29). The development of the District’s first behavioral health and law enforcement crisis co-response program [Educational session]. Co-Response Research Symposium Conference, William James College, Boston, MA.
• Minges, M. (2021, May). Crisis intervention and 988 [Keynote address]. Capital Clubhouse, Inc. Mental Health Town Hall, Washington, DC.
• Subhit, A., Rush, C., Minges, M., Kelly, K., & Pazzela, A. (2021, April). Trauma’s impact on identity through an Eriksonian lens [Educational session]. Association for Humanistic Counseling Conference (AHC), Virtual.
• Pittman, D., Quayson, A., Minges, M., & Rush, C. (2019, May). An examination of racial/ethnic differences in the relationship between psychological distress and sexual risk-taking behavior in college women [Poster presentation]. American College Health Association (ACHA) Annual Virtual Meeting.
• Pittman, D., Reidy, C., Minges, M., & Quayson, A. (2020, May). Examining psychological distress as a primer for sexual risk taking among emerging adults [Virtual presentation]. American College Health Association’s Virtual Conference.
• Pittman, D. M., Quayson, A., Riedy, C., & Minges, M. (2020, April). Making a case for heterosexual Black college students being identified as a high-risk population for HIV [Educational session]. APA Counseling Psychology Conference, New Orleans, LA.
• Pittman, D. M., Riedy, C., Quayson, A., Minges, M., & Hurley, K. (2019, August). The impact of race and sexual orientation on college women’s intimate partner violence vulnerability [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association (APA) Annual Convention, Division 17: Society of Counseling Psychology, Chicago, IL.
• Pittman, D. M., Quayson, A., Minges, M., & Riedy, C. (2019, August). Resilience despite adversity: Parent substance use, social support, and drinking among Black college women [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association (APA) Annual Convention, Division 45: Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race, Chicago, IL.
• Pittman, D., Quayson, A., Rush, C., Minges, M., & Hurley, K. (2019, August). The impact of race and sexual orientation on college women’s intimate partner violence vulnerability [Poster session]. American Psychological Association Conference, Chicago, IL.
• Pittman, D. M., Riedy, C., Quayson, A., & Minges, M. (2019, March). Intersecting vulnerabilities: The development of a multi-pronged research agenda examining health disparities among diverse communities of emerging adult women of color [Educational session]. Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development’s Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Summit, Orlando, FL.