If I participate in a credit counseling program, will my credit be adversely affected?

Not necessarily will depend upon overall credit profile

Maybe... Generally a lot of lenders will put a comment about the account being counseling, which is treated as a negative. Essentially if you need help paying the accounts, that is not viewed in a positive light. But the biggest item, is many of those counseling companies have you make payments to them, then they make payments to the creditor. I see A LOT of times they make payments late, so all those late payments end up on your credit report. Finally, you don't need a counseling program. Call each creditor yourself.