¶ … Consultation and Social Justice Advocacy Similar?: Exploring the Perceptions of Professional Counselors and Counseling Students Are Consultation and Social Justice Advocacy Similar?

Are Consultation and Social Justice Advocacy Similar? Exploring the Perceptions of Professional Counselors and Counseling Students"

Are Consultation and Social Justice Advocacy Similar?: Exploring the Perceptions of Professional Counselors and Counseling Students"

The mission of all counselors should be the desire to deliver high quality, complete school counseling services to all students. Our programs are designed to help all students develop and enhance their academic, social, career, and personal strengths in order to become responsible and productive citizens. There is a commitment to individual uniqueness and the maximum development of human potential. Through the skillful use of strategic, timely, and personal interventions, counselors customize educational experiences in order to enhance capabilities, close achievement gaps among high and low performing groups and support positive choices.

As a counselor I definitely see myself related to advocacy or consultation as I become a professional within my area of specialization Why do I believe this? Well, because I believe that I have a call to the profession. I believe that on the surface, the social advocacy movement in counseling certainly seems to be a called-for obligation. I believe myself to be a part of this movement. I see myself related to advocacy because the ideas that are promoted by the movement, for instance advocating for professional matters, advocating for the needs of understated and marginalized individuals and groups, taking political points on current social subjects, and working to eliminate methods and philosophies that continue discrimination and ignore for human rights are all apparently logical, sensible ideologies that classify significant substances for counselors. On the other hand, I believe that the most pressing order for the counseling occupation at this time is a detailed inspection of the social advocacy movement. I really believe that part of seeing myself as an advocate is to recognize the examination. Such an examination, through precarious and reproductive analysis, is requisite to resolutely establish the movement in the profession as a counselor and to understand how it has an impact on the occupation, individual members, and separate groups. Merely after experiencing such inspection can the command of social action certainly is impartially determined, chiefly as a professional and/or personal command.

I believe that it is important to become a part of this movement to impart change in my profession. I say this because the social advocacy movement lacks adequate restraint and sometimes efforts to endorse various programs such as personal, or political under the appearance of "social action." It makes a lot of bold assertions for which it has little or no functional proof, such as clinical usefulness. With that said, I believe as a future advocate in profession, I will be able to be a real asset in this area of profession.

I also believe that I see myself related to advocacy because side from anecdotal claims of being the panacea in counseling, the social advocacy movement raises more questions perhaps than it intends to answer, presents a host of new challenges, and calls into question the very definition of 'professional counseling (ACA, 1997). To fully understand its place (e.g., role, function, effectiveness, best practices) in the counseling profession, an in-depth examination and a thorough critique of the movement must be conducted. Therefore, we believe that it is time for a critical evaluation of the social advocacy movement in counseling and call for members to respond.

Within my own definition, I really do see consultation and advocacy are different. Consultation is basically a complementary model of practice for counselors acting as social justice advocates. Consultation for professional counselors typically involves acting on behalf of an identified client (or student) through interaction with another professional consultee or other shareholder in the client's well-being (Moe, 2010). The consultee can also be abstracted as a method or organization that assists an recognized student or client population (Moe, 2010). Practices for instance organizing...

8). Inside this context, he mentioned that counselors turned into agents of social change, superseding not just in the client's life but in the world around them also. Advocacy for the clients and advocacy for the counseling occupation obtain equal stress in that counselors may start pleading the cause of others, may contend for the progression of the counseling vocation, and may, in both occurrences, discover themselves superseding with organizations and administrations also as families and individuals.
Advocacy benefits my area of special education in many different ways. As a counselor in Special Education we will advocate in order to really get in their seriously and help parents achieve special education services that are for their child that has a disability from their public school system. This will be done by familiarizing themselves with the special education procedure. However, it must be understood that, advocates are not attorneys. This is one of the issues that people run into when they hear the word advocacy. However, advocates are as an advocate I will be extremely cooperative in IEP meetings in order to assist in the cooperation procedure that is among parents and their school. The Advocate then will be able to can provide some good information regarding special education choices and necessities and can aid in seeking exact programs or services. As an advocate I will be able to recognize local schools resources and can see solutions others might not.

Unfortunately, it is clear that advocacy for clients and advocacy for the counseling profession are mostly seen as opposite and discordant doings. For instance, McClure and Russo (1996) made the suggestion that the counseling profession has really moved away from its advanced roots and turned into a less informally engaged, practice that is viewed as unwanted. They made the reminder that the brawl for public approval of the profession and an enlarged stress on authorization and credentialing are issues that back the incapability of specialized counselors to be operative supporters that are for social change (Sheridan S.M., 2002).

As an advocate, I would have to understand that a substitute situation exists, one in which the two procedures of advocacy are not contrasted but are seen as corresponding and tangled. From this viewpoint, the formation of a genuine position for expert counselors between the mental health professions is observed as essential for counselors to be professed as trustworthy and, in turn, would authorize them to become effective supporters for clients and agents of social change (Soo-Hoo, 2007).

In a hypothetical situation we have a woman named Belinda is around 34-year-old, and is African-American. She is single and a divorced mother that was raised in a working-class family in a small town in the Deep South of the United States. Belinda has lived in a large, city for the past 7 years. Originally, she had entered parent consultation since she had fears regarding her volume to be able to parent her 10-year-old son (Brian). Belinda started the consultation procedure after she finished having a meeting with the children study team at her Brian's elementary school. The team then articulated their frustration with Brian's inability to regulate his anger and his disrespect for rules and authority.

Brian in the same school year had been suspended twice and was lately banned from even riding the school bus. Even though Brian advanced academically and has even exposed excellent creative abilities, the…