Social Justice and Advocacy in Counseling

Experiential Activities for Teaching

Mark Pope, Mariaimeé Gonzalez, Erika R.N. Cameron, Joseph S. Pangelinan, Mark Pope, Mariaimeé Gonzalez, Erika R.N. Cameron, Joseph S. Pangelinan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351720069
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Santé mentale en psychologie

Social Justice and Advocacy in Counseling provides a thorough and up to date grounding in social justice and advocacy for counseling students and faculty.

Chapters address issues of discrimination and oppression and their effect on individuals and cultural groups through a variety of activities and handouts related to each of the eight CACREP core standards. The book's final section focuses on activities and handouts related to counseling specialties, including school, career, and addictions counseling.

This book will help counselor educators increase student awareness, knowledge, and skills. For students, the practical activities bring the concept of social justice alive in important ways and will continue to be a handy reference as they develop their careers and promote access and equity.

Section 1
Social Justice and Advocacy Principles

In this section, educators and supervisors will find chapters with experiential activities that align with different social justice and advocacy principles. These social justice and advocacy principles were divided into subcategories exploring social justice and advocacy, the cycle of socialization and liberation, social constructs of oppression and privilege, intersections of oppression, and social justice and advocacy: strategies for change. The principles build upon each other in regard to one’s progression as a social justice and advocacy counselor. The subcategories What Is Social Justice and Advocacy? and Cycle of Socialization and Liberation allow for educators and supervisors to implement principles that focus on educating and increasing the importance of understanding this paradigm as mental health professionals and providing a foundational context needed to understand the role of social justice and advocacy counseling. Subcategories Social Constructs of Oppression and Privilege and Intersections of Oppression focus on one’s own relationship with oppression and liberation. Last, the subcategory Social Justice and Advocacy: Strategies for Change involves principles focused on practical applications to integrate social justice and advocacy into the community.

What is Social Justice and Advocacy?

These activities are designed to be used in introducing the definition of social justice and advocacy. Characterized as the fifth force in counseling, social justice and advocacy counseling illuminates the connection between human development and the oppressive system. “The social justice counseling paradigm—uses social advocacy and activism as a means to address inequitable social, political, and economic conditions that impede the academic, career, and personal/social development of individuals, families, and communities” (Ratts, 2009, p. 160). Activities will be focused on educating and increasing the importance of understanding this paradigm as mental health professionals and providing a foundational context needed to understand the role of social justice and advocacy counseling.

Cycle of Socialization and Liberation

These activities are designed to be used in explaining and determining the cycles of socialization and liberation. Activities focused on the cycle of socialization and liberation will allow for further exploration on the intra-and interpersonal development of oppression within a system and provide opportunities to examine these tenets in order to achieve liberation.

Social Constructs of Oppression and Privilege

These activities are designed to demonstrate how oppression and privilege are socially constructed. Activities will provide learning opportunities to explore the complexities as well as the influence of oppression and privilege on identity. These activities will highlight the influence of power and privilege within an oppressive society and the importance to become aware of one’s own privilege and impact on others, and vice versa, and to understand one’s own level of oppression and the lack of systemic power in others.

Intersections of Oppression

These activities are designed to demonstrate the intersection of oppression (e.g., racism and classism). Intersectionality is a framework that recognizes the multiple aspects of identity and complicated marginalizations and oppressions. Activities in this chapter will highlight how multiple oppressions are enacted intersectionally and how to provide opportunities to inspire change.

Social Justice and Advocacy: Strategies for Change

These activities are designed to demonstrate how individuals go out and create change in the community. Social justice advocacy counseling is a counselor-advocate-scholar model (Ratts & Pederson, 2014) that provides a framework to promote mental health professionals, educators, and scholars to become competent change agents. Activities will include practical applications to integrate social justice and advocacy into the community.

Chapter 1

The Journey

Exploring Social Justice Identity Development Through Critical Incidents

Shekila Melchior

Course Recommendations

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ADVOCACY PRINCIPLES	CORE CACREP STANDARDS	COUNSELING SPECIALIZATION
☑ Cycle of Socialization and Liberation	☑ Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice	☑ Clinical Mental Health Counseling
		☑ School Counseling
	☑ Social and Cultural Diversity	☑ Student Affairs and College Counseling

Topic

The purpose of this activity is to provide students with the opportunity to explore their developing social justice identity.

Learning Objectives

1. Definitions of social justice and advocacy
2. Bobbie Harro’s Cycle of Liberation (Harro, 2000)
3. Identify or begin to identify a social justice issue for which one would like to advocate
4. Explore or begin exploring critical incidents in one’s work as a counselor that motivate one to advocacy
5. Discover areas of shared interests with colleagues that could lead to collaboration

Target Population

Master’s or doctoral level students

Group Size

10–15 (recommendation would be for small groups if class is larger)

Time Required

45–60 minutes

Setting

This activity should be conducted after rapport has developed in the course. The activity should take place in a setting that is safe for students, and students should not be obligated to respond if the critical incident is a personal experience they do not wish to share. The hope is for a more diverse group that will allow students to gain knowledge about new areas of advocacy and issues that are significant to their colleagues.

Materials Needed

• Lined index cards
• Journey map handout
• Pens or pencils

Instructions for Conducting Activity

1. Defining social justice and advocacy.
2. Social justice: social justice can be defined as “an internal sense of conscience, a moral duty, and sense of righteousness to the world” (Hunsaker, 2011). Social justice envisions an equitable society that is physically and psychologically safe for all members (Bell, 1997).
3. Brief discussion on what social justice and advocacy looks like in the field of counseling:
   1. Discussing the American Counseling Association (ACA) Advocacy Framework (Ratts, DeKruyf, & Chen-Hayes, 2007)
   2. Discussing relevant American School Counselors Association (ASCA) position statements (ASCA, 2012)
   3. Our role as advocates
4. Instructor should provide a brief presentation on the Cycle of Liberation.
5. Provide one lined index card to each student:
   1. On the side without lines have the student write a social justice issue they currently or hope to advocate for.
   2. On the lined side have the students write meaningful experiences or major events in their life that led them to their social justice issue (this is a time to remind them of your Cycle of Liberation discussion focusing on the critical incident).
6. Have students reflect on their journey toward advocacy so far and what they hope to achieve as an advocate for their specific social justice issue, utilizing the journey map to track their process.

Discussion

In a larger class (20 or more), students in groups of three to four should discuss their personal journey (disclosing what they wish) to advocacy. Students should also discuss in small groups any similarities they may have and opportunities for collaboration. This small group discussion should be around 10 minutes. Then i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Introduction
• SECTION 1 Social Justice and Advocacy Principles
• SECTION 2 Core CACREP Standards
• SECTION 3 Social Justice and Advocacy Issues in Specific Counseling Specialty Settings
• Author Index
• Social Justice and Advocacy Principles Index
• Core CACREP Course Index
• Counseling Specialization Index