Transcript School Counselors and Social Justice

Cher Edwards, Rachel Gremillion, & Kaley Mitchell

Multicultural Competencies
◦ Framework that works to guide counselor’s
cultural awareness, cultural biases, and cultural
interventions
◦ Counseling profession began to find value in
addressing issues of diversity
(Toporek, Lewis, & Crethar, 2009)

Professional awareness
◦ That counseling paradigms focused
predominately on individual factors and ignored
systems of oppression
(Ratts, 2009)

Counselors for Social Justice (CSJ)

Advocacy Competencies (2003)
◦ Systemic advocacy addresses issues in social justice counseling
 Individual, community, and public levels
◦ Addresses issues related to equity, fairness, privilege, power,
harmony, and oppression
(Ratts, Dekryuf, and Chen-Hayes, 2007)

We are called to be social justice advocates
◦ Literature
◦ Initiatives
◦ Professional framework
◦ Ethical guidelines
◦ Position statements

Literature
◦ School Counselors have a “unique” position in
schools that allows them to execute social justice
advocacy and challenge inequities within schools
and communities
(Bemuk & Chung, 2005; Dekryuf & Chen-Hayes, 2007; House & Martin, 1999)

Transforming School Initiative
◦ Worked in collaboration with Education Trust to
develop a new vision of school counseling with
advocacy at its core
◦ Focused on the transformation of graduate level
preparation programs
(Toporek, Lewis, & Crethar, 2009; Singh, Urbano, Haston, & McMahon, 2010)

ASCA National Model
◦ Defines advocacy as a school counselors role
◦ Leadership, advocacy, and collaboration all lead to systemic
change

Ethical Standards for School Counselors
◦ American School Counselor Association states that “each
person has the right to be respected [and] be treated
with dignity” (ASCA, 2010, Preamble)
◦ ASCA also states that “the professional school
counselor is concerned with the educational,
academic, career, personal, and social needs and
encourages the maximum development of every
student” (ASCA, 2010, A.1.)
◦ American Counseling Association states that “the primary
responsibility of a counselor is to respect the dignity
and promote the welfare of clients” (ACA, 2005, A.1.a).

American School Counselor Association
Position Statements
◦ i.e. Equity for all students

What is social justice counseling?
◦ The deliberate act of promoting equity, access, participation,
and harmony to eliminate environmental and individual
injustices
◦ Acknowledges issues of power, privilege, and oppression
◦ Addresses social, political, economic and cultural conditions
that impact students academic, career, and personal
development
(Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007; Fouad, Gerstein, & Toporek, 2006; Goodman, 2001; Ratts, 2009; ACA
Governing Council, 2003)


Is this happening in the schools?
Questionable
◦ Research is limited but some social justice advocacy
counseling has been reported
 Field and Baker (2004) researched how and when school
counselors advocate for students
 Singh, Urbano, Haston and McMahon (2010) explored the
strategies used by professional school counselors to advocate for
social justice and systemic change in their school community
 Angel Dowden

Advocacy Competencies Self-Assessment
(ACSA) Survey
(Ratts, 2007)


School counselor’s lack of
training/education (Lerner, 1998)
Lack of empirical research



Nice Counselor Syndrome
Little interest in social and/or political
change
Isolation
(Bemak &Chung, 2008)

Burn out

False belief that they need to know more
(Roysircar, 2009)




Origin
Current state
Implications for professional school
counselors
Resources
Retrieved from http://counselorsforsocialjustice.com/advocacycompetencies.html
Client/Student Empowerment



An advocacy orientation involves not only
systems change interventions but also the
implementation of empowerment strategies
in direct counseling.
Advocacy-oriented counselors recognize the
impact of social, political, economic, and
cultural factors on human development.
They also help their clients and students
understand their own lives in context.
Client/Student Advocacy


When counselors become aware of external
factors that act as barriers to an individual’s
development, they may choose to respond
through advocacy.
The client/student advocate role is especially
significant when individuals or vulnerable
groups lack access to needed services.
Community Collaboration



Their ongoing work with people gives
counselors a unique awareness of recurring
themes. Counselors are often among the
first to become aware of specific difficulties
in the environment.
Advocacy-oriented counselors often choose
to respond to such challenges by alerting
existing organizations that are already
working for change and that might have an
interest in the issue at hand.
In these situations, the counselor’s primary
role is as an ally. Counselors can also be
helpful to organizations by making available
to them our particular skills: interpersonal
relations, communications, training, and
research.
Systems Advocacy
 When counselors identify systemic
factors that act as barriers to their
students’ or clients’ development,
they often wish that they could
change the environment and
prevent some of the problems that
they see every day.
 Regardless of the specific target of
change, the processes for altering
the status quo have common
qualities. Change is a process that
requires vision, persistence,
leadership, collaboration, systems
analysis, and strong data. In many
situations, a counselor is the right
person to take leadership.
Social/Political Advocacy
 Counselors regularly act as change
agents in the systems that affect
their own students and clients most
directly. This experience often
leads toward the recognition that
some of the concerns they have
addressed affect people in a much
larger arena.
 When this happens, counselors use
their skills to carry out
social/political advocacy.

During educational training as a student
◦ Coursework
◦ Practicum/internship experiences
◦ Additional professional development

In practice as a professional school
counselor
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Professional development (self)
Building
District
State
Nationally