TPC-Journal-V6-Issue2

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 2 184 appeared to finish the data collection sessions with a more positive understanding of what advocacy is and could be. Strengths of Career Counselors in Promoting Social Justice In addition to discussing barriers to advocacy, participants were asked directly about strengths of career counselors in promoting social justice and were able to identify many. First and foremost, participants saw the ability to develop one-on-one relationships with clients as a strength. One participant nicely captured the essence of all responses in this area by stating, “The key thing is our work one-on-one with an individual to say that even though you’re in a bad place, you have strengths, you have resources, and you have value.” Participants indicated that social change happens through a process of empowering clients, instilling hope and seeing diversity as a strength of a client’s career identity. The ability to develop strong counseling relationships was attributed partially to participants’ counseling training and identity, as well as to their exposure to a broad range of client concerns due to the inseparable nature of work from all other aspects of clients’ lives (Herr & Niles, 1998; Tang, 2003). Career counselors in this study served diverse populations and highly valued doing so. These participants described multicultural counseling skills and experience as central to competent career counseling and to advocacy. They felt that they possessed and valued multicultural competence, which bodes well for their potential to engage in competent and ethical advocacy work with additional training, experience and supervision (Crook, Stenger, & Gesselman, 2015; Vespia, Fitzpatrick, Fouad, Kantamneni, & Chen, 2010). Finally, participants felt that career counseling is seen as more accessible than mental health counseling to some clients, giving career counselors unique insight into clients’ social and personal worlds. Participants reported having a broad perspective on their clients’ lives and therefore unique opportunities to advocate for social justice. Relatedly, participants noted that the more concrete and tangible nature of career counseling and its outcomes (e.g., employment) may lead policymakers to be interested in hearing career counselors’ perspectives on social issues related to work. One participant noted that “there’s a huge conversation to be had around work and social justice” and that career counselors’ key strength “is empowering clients and the broader community to understand the role of work.” Implications for Career Counselors, Counselor Educators, and Supervisors Nearly all participants described the sorting process as thought provoking and indicated that social justice and advocacy were topics they appreciated the opportunity to think more about. There was a strong desire among some practitioners in this study to talk more openly with colleagues about social justice and its connection to career counseling, but a lingering hesitation as well. Therefore, one implication of the present study is that practitioners should begin to engage in discussions about this topic with colleagues and leaders in the profession. If there is a shared value for advocacy beyond the individual level, but time and skills are perceived as barriers, perhaps a larger conversation about the role of career counselors is timely. Career counselors may benefit from finding like- minded colleagues with whom to talk about social justice and advocacy. Support from peers may help practitioners strategize ways to question or challenge coworkers who may be practicing career counseling in ways that hinder social justice. To move toward greater self-awareness and ethical advocacy, practitioners and career counseling leaders must ask themselves critical and self-reflexive questions about their roles and contributions in promoting social justice (McIlveen & Patton, 2006; Prilleltensky & Stead, 2012). Some authors have