A supervisee committed to a multicultural counseling practice approached me feeling distressed and self-critical. In my capacity as a doctoral candidate in counselor education and supervision, I had worked with this supervisee for several months and had also worked with him the year prior. At this point, he expressed uncertainty
Tag: Social Justice
Social Justice
Viewing the landscape of today’s society, it is clear that multicultural and social justice issues have never been more visible. Although prejudice, racism and inequality have always plagued our nation, society is no longer keeping secret or turning its cheek to the omnipresent consequences of privilege and marginalization. Everyone is
According to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 46.7 million Americans living in poverty in 2014, or a poverty rate of 14.8 percent. The picture was even bleaker for many ethnic and racial minorities. The same study found that 26.2 percent of African Americans (10.8 million people) and
During the past three decades, counseling scholars and practitioners have argued that multicultural competence is a central concern to working effectively with diverse clients and to providing culturally responsive counseling environments. Counselors and clients both bring to the therapeutic relationship a constellation of identities, privileged and marginalized statuses, and cultural
[ Editor’s note: Roughly one year ago, CT Online wrote an article about the initiatives the counseling department at the University of Missouri – St. Louis (UMSL) was engaging in as protests and turmoil rocked the city of Ferguson after Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was fatally shot by
One of my favorite things about graduate school was doing literature reviews. I enjoyed finding the perfect articles to support my positions, gaining really useful insights and simply being amazed at some of the things that we have learned about being human. A thought frequently ran through my mind as
Advocacy is a concept that can evoke visions of protesters and picket lines, phone banks and information booths, and maybe even knocking on doors and accosting strangers on the street. But at its most basic level, advocacy means to help or assist, and isn’t that the essence of counseling? “I feel
Successfully partnering with and providing culturally responsive services to communities of color require more than cultural competence. The multicultural counseling competencies, adopted by the American Counseling Association and the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development in 1992, were a major step in recognizing the unique needs of communities of color.
When South African President Jacob Zuma announced that Nelson Mandela had died Dec. 5, he said, “Our people have lost a father.” Mandela, South Africa’s first black president and champion of human rights, leaves behind a legacy of reconciliation. His message and inspiration have rippled across the globe, including in
There’s this guy I know, let’s call him “Javier.” When he was 15, he had a life in Peru that he was not willing to leave. In Peru, Javier was surrounded by his family and friends. He was part of a community that spoke the same language he did and