Consultation and Advocacy in the Counseling Profession

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Consultation and Advocacy in the Counseling Profession Michael Keller COUN5004 Abstract This paper discusses the roles of consultation and social justice advocacy in the counseling profession. There is a discussion of how I see my role in advocacy and consultation as I become a professional in mental health. The paper will also discuss how I view consulting as it relates to advocacy. Finally, there is a brief hypothetical situation which then illustrates how knowledge of consultation and advocacy could be applied to correct it. Role of a Mental Health Counselor The role of a counselor as a social advocate has been discussed in literature since the late 1800’s (Smith, Reynolds, & Rovnak, 2009). Social justice advocacy in counseling promotes the ideas of speaking for those who are underrepresented and works to eliminate systems that encourage discrimination and violate human rights (Smith et al., 2009). In the required reading, Moe (2010) states that there is a push to inject a social advocacy role into counseling to help with oppression of minority populations. In this paper, there will be the discussion of: how I see my role as it relates to advocacy and consultation, do I see consultation and advocacy as similar or different, how advocacy benefits the care provided to children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families related to the specific specialty area that I plan to practice. Lastly, I will create a hypothetical situation of a child, adolescent, adult, couple, or family and address how counselors' knowledge of consultation and advocacy could interact with the progression of their counseling experience based on my area of specialization. This author believes that as a mental health counselor his role

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