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

An exploratory pilot study was conducted to investigate the views of present and future counselors on whether and in what ways social justice advocacy and consultation may overlap and possibly synergize. Descriptive results indicate that study participants (n = 203) viewed (a) basic counseling skills, (b) problem-solving, (c) acting on behalf of clients, and (d) contextualizing client or student issues in relation to oppression as services that both consultants and advocates engage in. Practices such as diagnosis or direct action were viewed as unique to either consultation or advocacy. A multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that participants differed in their perceived similarity between consultation and advocacy based on the interaction of their practice setting and ethnic or racial identification. Implications for future research and theory are discussed. The topic of social justice as it applies to and informs professional counseling has been addressed in the literature from many perspectives (Smith, Ng, Brinson, & Mityagin, 2008). Scholars propose that integrating a social justice advocacy role into the core identity of professional counselors will help redress past and current societal oppression of marginalized populations (Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007; Crethar, Torres Rivera, & Nash, 2008; Hays, Dean, & Chang, 2007; Roysircar, 2009). Present conceptions of social justice advocacy stress critical self-reflection on one’s personal relationship to oppression within the Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology Volume 2, Number 2 Fall 2010 107 socio-political context of the mainstream or dominant culture (Constantine et al., 2007; Crethar et al., 2008; Roysircar, 2009; Vera & Speight, 2003). Counselors are encouraged to consider the role that their profession plays within the dominant culture (Prilleltensky & Prilleltensky, 2003), to reconcile the role of healer with that of social change-agent (Vera & Speight, 2003), and to advocate for macro-level, pro-social systemic change on behalf of their clients and of those suffering oppression and marginalization (Lewis, Arnold, House, & Torporek, 2003; Prilleltensky & Prilleltensky, 2003; Roysircar, 2009). Crethar, Torres Rivera, and Nash (2008) have identified the principles of equity, access, participation, and harmony as values that social justice advocates seek to promote via change initiatives at the individual, community, and sociocultural levels. Though scholars continue to identify concerns regarding how the specific nature and scope of social justice advocacy for counselors will be defined (Nelson-Jones, 2002; Roysircar, 2009; Weinrach & Thomas, 2004), in 2003 the American Counseling Association (ACA) endorsed the creation and publication of the Advocacy Competencies (Lewis et al., 2003) for professional counselors. The Summer 2009 special issue of the Journal of Counseling and Development on the Advocacy Competencies (Lewis et al., 2003) contains conceptual scholarship on how to integrate different aspects of said Competencies into counseling practice. Along with the publication of this special issue, scholarship has focused on making the case for social justice (Prilletensky & Prilletensky, 2003; Vera & Speight, 2003), and on synthesizing the social justice counseling paradigm with other key counseling perspectives such as multicultural theory (Constantine et al., 2007; Crethar et al., 2008) and school counseling (Bemak & Chung, 2008; Dahir & Stone, 2009). These conceptual and theoretical efforts are useful for describing how and why social justice is a fundamental premise for professional counseling in the 21 century. Further efforts to articulate the paradigm of social justice advocacy into other knowledge domains salient to professional counseling are warranted, especially in terms of creating empirically-based scholarship to texture the literature base. Of 26 articles indexed under the subjects of social justice and social advocacy published in the Journal of Counseling and Development between 1987 and 2009, only two were based on data collection and analysis. Of the eight articles published in Counselor Education and Supervision on social justice advocacy during the same time period, only two were empirical investigations with one of these articles being a content analysis of the journal (Smith et al., 2008). Along with the lack of data-driven scholarship pertaining to social justice advocacy in the counseling literature, there is some evidence that practitioners and students have mixed or conflicting reactions to addressing issues of social power and privilege as these apply to counseling (Bemak & Chung, 2008; Hayes et al., 2007; Weinrach & Thomas, 2004). Two phenomena articulated in the literature include counselors’ resistance to addressing social privilege as an issue relevant to counseling (Arredondo, Tovar-Blank, & Parham, 2008; Hayes et al., 2007) and a desire by counselors to have proponents of social justice advocacy and multicultural theory explain in greater detail how to implement advocacy into daily practice (Nelson-Jones, 2002; Weinrach & Thomas, 2004). For example, Ludlow, Enterline, and Cochran-Smith (2008) identified that student teachers’ beliefs about social justice changed over the course of their education, with more experienced student teachers evidencing greater willingness to discuss privilege and oppression both inside and outside of the classroom. Student teachers seemed more comfortable endorsing beliefs related to expression of attitudes or knowledge about oppression and were more reluctant to endorse beliefs related to actions necessary to counter or reduce oppression (Ludlow et al., 2008). In a similar vein, Hayes and colleagues (2007) described how it was easier for counseling students to agree on the need for Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology Volume 2, Number 2 Fall 2010 108 advocacy, but harder for the same students to identify concrete strategies for coping with specific oppressive conditions. Scholars have integrated the social justice advocacy paradigm into conceptually related frameworks partially to address the above phenomena (Ratts & Hutchins, 2009). Bemak and Chung (2008) identified that the principles of systemic advocacy and of working with students to increase access to resources are evident in both the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model and the ACA Advocacy Competencies (Lewis et al., 2003). Dahir and Stone (2008) articulated how advocacy principles can be infused into school counseling data collection and accountability strategies. Social justice advocacy and multicultural counseling competency share philosophical underpinnings (Crethar et al., 2008) such as attempting to redress historical oppression and to highlight how concepts of mental illness have been used to pathologize the experiences of oppressed people (Roysircar, 2009). Integrating social justice advocacy with frameworks like the ASCA National Model and the Multicultural Counseling Competencies (Arredondo et al., 1996) helps to identify concrete practices, skills, attitudes, and knowledge bases that advocates may use to facilitate social change in their role as a counselor. Social Justice and Consultation Along with school counseling best practice models and with multicultural theory, review of the literature reveals that scholars have identified consultation as 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 stakeholder in the client’s welfare (Brown, Pryzwansky, & Schulte, 2010; Kampwirth, 2006; Kurpius & Fuqua, 1993). The consultee may also be conceptualized as a system or organization that serves an identified client or student population (Brown et al., 2010; Moe & Perera-Diltz, 2009). Practices such as preparing for entry into a consultee organization (or clarifying one’s consultant role if already joined with a consultee organization) (Brown et al., 2010), developing rapport with vested stakeholders (Kurpius & Fuqua, 1993), engaging in collaborative problem solving (Lusky & Hayes, 2001), and evaluating the efficacy of interventions (Brown, 1993; Kampwirth, 2006) are common across various models of consultation. Scholars have identified that consultation and social justice advocacy share conceptual grounding in modes of practice that encourage counselors to act outside of the counselor/client interaction (Holcomb-McCoy & Bryan, 2010; Lusky & Hayes, 2001; Ratts & Hutchins, 2009). Practices such as collaborating with multiple stakeholder groups and identifying institutional policies that may promote marginalization of vulnerable community members are used by both consultants (Brown, 1993; Kampwirth, 2006) and advocates (Vera & Speight, 2003) to achieve desired goals. Proponents of systemic-organizational consultation models affirm the efficacy that professional counselors and counselor educators can have when acting on behalf of the consultee and (indirectly) on behalf of clients, students, and other consumers of counseling services (Lusky & Hayes, 2001; Moe & Perera-Diltz, 2009). The framework of behavioral consultation is often used to conduct functional behavioral analysis and assessment (Brown et al., 2010), a practice mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) to facilitate the provision of equitable and effective services to individuals with disabilities in public schools (Kampwirth, 2006). Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology Volume 2, Number 2 Fall 2010 109 Baker, Robichaud, Dietrich, Wells, and Schreck (2009) proposed that school counselor consultation is a practice domain that naturally overlaps with an advocacy perspective. Comparisons and similarities between consultation strategies and social justice advocacy were put forth by Baker and colleagues and by Holcomb-McCoy & Bryan (2010) to support these scholars’ presentations of integrated models of advocacy-based consultation. Authors Ratts and Hutchins (2009) have also highlighted how counselors-as-advocates often adopt the role of consultant to promote empowerment of clients and students. Lusky and Hayes (2001) proposed that the social justice principles of collaboration, empowerment of the disenfranchised, and acting from awareness of one’s own relationship to privilege are supported by infusing a critical consultation and advocacy stance into counselors’ overall concept of practice. Rationale for Current Study The burgeoning literature base on conceptual similarities between consultation and social justice advocacy would benefit from empirical work to investigate the relevance, utility, and application of how to further integrate these two important counseling frameworks. Providing empirical evidence to texture scholars’ valuable efforts at theory building may serve to further create spaces for constructive dialogue on the topic of social justice as it applies to counselor education, training, and practice. Rather than propose a new model of social justice consultation, however, the authors were interested in exploring the views of practicing counselors and counseling students to identify potential sources of synergy and divergence between social justice advocacy and consultation. The authors also sought to add to the literature by identifying variables useful for future inquiry on the topic of how and in what ways advocacy and consultation complement each other as models for practice. In order to partially address the phenomenon where counseling students affirmed the value of social justice advocacy but also wanted more exposure to concrete practices that could promote social justice (Hayes et al., 2009), the authors wanted to anticipate counselors’ responses to the idea that practices related to consultation and to social advocacy could be integrated successfully. The authors believe that feedback about the social justice advocacy paradigm in general and how it may relate to consultation specifically as provided by practicing counselors, though vital to future attempts at modeland theory-building in this area, is lacking. A consideration of the similarities between these two frameworks also may help counselors to refine and explore legitimate differences between consultation and advocacy. Finally, investigating group differences in the perceived similarity of advocacy and consultation would help clarify what characteristics of counselors may be informing their willingness to affirm a social justice perspective and integrate it into consultation. In this vein, the authors sought to address the research questions: a) Do practicing counselors perceive that consultation and social justice advocacy as similar?; b) In what ways are consultation and social justice advocacy similar as perceived by professional counselors?; and c) What variables affect counselors’ perception of the similarity between consultation and social justice advocacy? The focus of the present study is to explore the perceptions of professional counselors and counseling students in order to add to the developing literature base on the topic of how consultation and social justice advocacy are related and to elicit future directions for empirical research on consultation and social justice advocacy. 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