2026 NBCC Research Innovations Individual Awards

2026 NBCC Research Innovations Individual Awards

The National Board for Certified Counselors is thrilled to honor three individuals who are at the forefront of the Counseling profession’s evolution. While Counselors are navigating telehealth, artificial intelligence, and other professional challenges, NBCC’s Counseling Innovation Awards celebrate professionals who enrich the lives of other Counselors and their clients through their work in these areas.

The Innovation in Counseling Practice and Clinical Service Award was presented to Monica Band, EdD, NCC, ACS, LPC, CCC, CRC, and Carlos Castañeda, PhD, NCC, LPC. The Research Innovations in Counselor Practice and Counselor Education Award was presented to Darius Green, PhD, NCC, LPC.

Dr. Monica Band is the private-practice owner of Mindful Healing Counseling, LLC, founder of Asian Therapists in Private Practice, an educator, and a mental health subject matter expert. Her background is in community mental health and Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling, but networking led her to unique professional opportunities.

“Relationships are long-term investments,” she shares. “Every now and then, you'll be surprised that sometimes there are some wild returns you didn't even think there would be. Don't be afraid to say ‘yes.’”

Dr. Band said her mentors encouraged her to say yes to new opportunities, even if they were outside of her comfort zone. By saying “yes,” Dr. Band received exciting professional opportunities.

In 2022, she worked on MTV’s first Youth Mental Health Action Forum at the White House, supporting the featured youth as a Counselor. A few months after that, colleagues from the JED Foundation asked Dr. Band about hosting a podcast called “ I Need to Ask You Something.” Youth were invited onto the show with someone they had a relationship with, and they asked Dr. Band questions about improving the relationship. Parents and their children, best friends, and roommates were some of the featured guests.

“I didn't know what I was doing because I've never done anything like that before. I knew nothing about being a podcast host, and somehow, I became one,” Dr. Band says.

Despite being new to podcast hosting, “I Need to Ask You Something” won Mental Health America’s 2024 Media Award. Dr. Band also supported youth through her work on Pivotal Ventures’ Adolescent Mental Health Portfolio. She helped develop a grant for organizations serving BIPOC and queer youth and later served on the selection committee for the grant. “Another highlight of my career in an innovative way was to develop a grant from the ground up and be a part of the process of not just creating it, but selecting and assisting people and being there when they were notified—just being a part of the entire lifespan of that,” she says.

Throughout her innovative Counseling work, NBCC has been part of Dr. Band’s career, from taking an examination to maintaining credentials and then helping students apply for the NBCC Foundation’s Fellowship Program. She admires NBCC’s advocacy and says she’s proud to win an award from an organization that strengthens the Counseling profession.

“I have long admired NBCC’s ability to both elevate very important advocacy work [and] create a standardized way of practicing. We need certification. We need standards,” she says.

Dr. Band encourages Counselors to be hopeful. Many things are out of their control, but she explains that the profession is constantly evolving.

“It can easily get overwhelming—with all the things you can do and should do and all the ways in which you can't control things. Don’t be discouraged. Just focus your best on the things that you have talents for and follow your talent,” she shares.

Dr. Carlos Castañeda is the founder and CEO of ThinkAITA, which supports mental health care through AI-powered tools. He is the private-practice owner of The Missing Piece Clinic, which provides specialized counseling services to individuals who experience neurodivergence, and an assistant professor at St. Edward’s University.

As a 2022 NBCC Foundation Doctoral alum, Dr. Castañeda has experienced the mentorship of other Counselors. Now, he’s passionate about giving back.

“All this has been a dream,” he shares. “It really is a family, and I'm grateful to still be with my cohort and also be able to share experiences and resources with other folks who I found really want to make sure that Counselors are thriving and that people are receiving the care they deserve.”

Dr. Castañeda’s company, ThinkAITA, is helping to define the role of AI within the Counseling profession. Various AI tools supplement Counselors’ skills, such as providing guided meditations for clients outside of session, crisis detection to notify a Counselor about a client outside of session, client roleplaying functionalities for Counselors, and more.

OpenAI recruited Dr. Castañeda and 88 other professionals to host and teach at the OpenAI Academy, where he demonstrated how to responsibly use AI and how it can facilitate mock simulations. His goal is to focus on the Counselors using the product and provide effective, HIPAA- and FERPA-compliant resources.

AI is a developing technology, but Dr. Castañeda recognized how it could support Counseling professionals. He took the leap to invest in it and had faith in his vision for ThinkAITA. Now, it’s a service trusted by universities, enterprises, and public sector organizations.

Dr. Castañeda encourages Counselors to believe in themselves. Before he became a doctoral fellow, Dr. Castañeda applied for the NBCC Foundation Fellowship several times as a master’s student. He never gave up.

“Any dream that you have, [it’s about] making sure that you don't let others hold you back, but especially not holding yourself back either,” he says. “So when that thought comes, ‘Why I can't do this?’—ask yourself, ‘Why not?’”

Dr. Darius Green is an Assistant Professor at Bowie State University and works as a Counselor in private practice.

He has worked with clients who were mandated to receive care and observed that most of those clients were either Black or Brown men. He noticed certain patterns in the clients and began questioning the systems that led to their mental health conditions.

“I think that's also one of the research aspects of my professional identity, just paying attention to trends and patterns. Maybe it's something that informs something I might investigate or something I might look at existing research to better help understand what's going on and what I'm seeing either within myself or within trends among populations,” he says.

Dr. Green’s doctoral dissertation was about how Counselors viewed Counselor competence to address police violence through clinical practice or advocacy. He found that many Counselors support clients who have experienced some form of police violence, but there is a lack of formal training and education on this topic.

After receiving his doctorate, Dr. Green continued his research, focusing on vicarious exposure to police violence, which includes viewing police violence on social media, and its mental health impacts.

Dr. Green says that as he researches and discovers gaps in Counselor Education, he learns how to approach his other counseling work differently.

“What I learned from research definitely informs how I teach and what I learned while teaching,” he says. “Doing research informs how I practice and support clients as well. What I try to bring to the profession and get out of the profession is really what I can give back.”

Other Counselors have supported Dr. Green’s work. He appreciates the professionals who have invested in him and contributed to his accomplishments.

“I think the thing that means the most to me in winning this award is the community of people around me who chose to nominate me—who saw value in the work that I do,” he says.

He encourages other Counselors to lean on their community when conducting research to receive feedback and to also support other professionals.

“Part of sustaining research is being a community with others who are researchers, and others who are not researchers, because it really is a collective effort.”

NBCC is sincerely thankful for Drs. Band, Castañeda, and Green and their significant contributions to the Counseling profession. Some of the winners also shared their stories on NBCC’s 2026 Awards YouTube playlist, which can be found here.