advocating for social change techniques and tools
A critical part of your development as a counseling professional involves working for positive social change. In fact, your ultimate goal of becoming a clinical mental health counselor means working with clients to help them understand and work through their issues and strengthen their overall well-being. In addition to your profession and its impact in effecting social change, you are also in a position to learn about emerging issues your clients may be facing that should be addressed.
Advocating for social change often means getting the word out. Over the years, the methods for making the public aware have grown from flyers, brochures, and poster sessions at conferences to advocating online, including blogs, wikis, and social media. But the central goal of these communications remains focused on presenting the issue and the goal as clearly and succinctly as possible.
For this Discussion, you will develop skills that will help you become an agent for social change. You will create an informational product advocating change with a current issue facing a population that interests you.
To Prepare:
- Review the Optional Resources and consider the possible technology tools to use for the creation of your Counselor’s Role as Advocate for Social Change informational product (brochure, flyer, PowerPoint, wiki, blog, etc.).
- Select a digital tool to create your Social Change informational product. It may be in the form of a flyer, brochure, wiki, blog post, webpage, or other format of your choosing.
- Review the Learning Resources and select a relevant, current event concerning a setting/population you are interested in.
- Conduct a brief web search for information regarding best practices and “how to†tips for developing and maximizing the effectiveness of your product.
By Day 3
Post the following:
- Title and Introduction
- An evaluation of the current event/problem area you selected that includes the following:
- A description of the setting/population you would like to work with (Mental Health, Addiction, Campus, etc.)
- A description of the problem, issue, or event that led to your interest
- An explanation of why you chose the issue you selected and why change is needed. Make sure to cite at least three scholarly resources (these may include your course text and scholarly, peer-reviewed sources from the Walden journal databases).
- A list of action steps one might take to address the problem
- Reference list (Remember: sources listed in your reference section must be, specifically, cited intext)
Include an attachment or link to your Social Change informational product with your discussion post.
References:
Erford, B. T. (Ed.). (2018). Orientation to the counseling profession: Advocacy, ethics, and essential professional foundations (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
- Chapter 14, “Advocating for the Counseling Profession†(pp. 435-457)
- Chapter 15, “Advocacy Counseling: Being an Effective Agent of Change for Clients†(pp. 458-485)
Multicultural Counseling Competencies Revisions Committee. (2015). Multicultural and social justice counseling competencies. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/comp…