TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 53 justice. Key themes among the findings were the value of: (a) introducing social justice material in coursework, (b) incorporating examination, dialogue and reflection with respect to dynamics of privilege and oppression in society, (c) scaffolding all students in their meaning-making of the dynamics of privilege and oppression in their own experiences regardless of their identities and relative social positions, and (d) providing opportunities for experiential activities beyond the individual client level and classroom. Teaching Consonant with the developmental nature of counselor training and the research findings discussed relative to critical pedagogy, the more recent literature in the fields of counseling and psychology promoted critical theoretical approaches (Brubaker et al., 2010), models (Green et al., 2008) and training strategies (Bemak et al., 2011; Hof et al., 2009; Rasheed Ali et al., 2008). These recommendations pointed to the value of pedagogies that: (a) incorporate a tone of equality, de-ideologize dominant paradigms and incorporate experiential training (Brubaker et al., 2010); (b) recognize the link between social justice advocacy and professional advocacy (Hof et al., 2009); and (c) address the domains of awareness, knowledge and skill in infusing social justice advocacy throughout curricula (Green et al., 2008). Green et al. (2008) proposed an advocacy counseling paradigm that builds from awareness of injustice, to knowledge to empowerment of self and others, up to skills to perform and teach to others. Their model is consistent with the guidance offered by Rasheed Ali, Ming Liu, Mahmood, and Arguello (2008), who advised: “Before the actual practical training of social justice begins, it is equally important for students to understand the meaning and implications of social justice as a theory as well as implementing theory to practice” (p. 3). In their reflections on infusing social justice advocacy, Bemak et al. (2011) provided a number of suggestions. These included beginning with the faculty and engaging in collective meaning-making about social justice and how it applies across courses and content. They went on to address the relevance of personal experiences of students with respect to their worldview and their identities as counselors, and emphasized the need to explore the challenges of social justice work with students. They recommended utilizing real life situations and news in role plays and further suggested service learning as an important component of hands-on training. Experiential learning, particularly in terms of service learning was a consistent recommendation in the most current literature. Murray et al. (2010) pointed out that experiential learning is already an essential component of counselor training through fieldwork. In addition to affording students the opportunity to apply gains in awareness, knowledge and skills, they asserted that service learning also encourages civic commitment. Rasheed Ali et al. (2008) described a homeless shelter practicum as an apt example of a practicum experience that reaches an underserved population and that could include attention to public policy initiatives. Ali emphasized the need for sensitivity and care in assessing community needs, placing students, and evaluating the impact of service learning projects when developing fieldwork opportunities for counselor trainees where they will have an opportunity to confront social injustices and engage in advocacy at the client, community and public policy levels. Supervision Falender and Shafranske (2004) offered a clear description of diversity competent supervision as a process that not only promotes social justice, but also is in essence a social justice intervention. They asserted that diversity-competent supervision: includes incorporation of self-awareness by both supervisor and supervisee and is an interactive process of the client or family, supervisee-therapist, and supervisor, using all of their diversity factors. It entails awareness, knowledge, and appreciation of the interaction among the client’s, supervisee-therapist’s, and supervisor’s assumptions, values, biases, expectations, and worldviews; integration and practice of appropriate, relevant, and sensitive assessment and intervention strategies and skills; and consideration of the larger milieu of history, society, and sociopolitical variables (p. 125). Their conceptualization of the infusion of diversity and social justice within the supervisory relationship and the supervision process is in alignment with the critical pedagogical recommendations of Brubaker et al. (2010) for the infusion of advocacy in counselor training, as well as the recommendations of Glosoff and Durham (2010) for