Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is emerging as a group counseling practice that focuses on topics that are of personal interest to youth and aims to promote social change. Although YPAR has been found to facilitate critical consciousness, assist with youth self-identity development, and promote social change, few researchers have examined its application in counseling. The present study explored six school counselor trainees’ perceptions of YPAR as a therapeutic intervention and its impact on counseling skill development and how it relates to multicultural and social justice counseling competencies. The themes that resulted from the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis for YPAR as a counseling practice were: (1) fun, interactive, youth-centered approach, not like counseling or therapy, (2) implementation of challenges requiring planning, time, and commitment, (3) collaborative supports to step out of comfort zone, overcome initial hesitancy, and welcome new learning experience, (4) development of counseling skills and confidence as a counselor, and (5) understanding differences and increasing self-awareness and advocacy skills. Discussion and implications for school counseling practice are provided.

This study examines counseling professionals’ knowledge concerning the Medicare program and related advocacy efforts. American Counseling Association members (N = 5,097) answered a series of true-false questions that were intended to measure proficiency in two areas: Medicare policy and the counseling profession’s advocacy for provider eligibility. Statistical analyses indicated that members have a wide range of Medicare knowledge. A significant difference in advocacy history knowledge was found when comparing counselor educators, practicing counselors, doctoral students, and master’s students. However, no differences in policy knowledge were present among these groups. Implications for the counseling profession and counselor training are discussed.

This article bridges multiple ways of knowing to explore the experience of an undergraduate psychology class focused on intersectionality. Drawing on feminist pedagogy, intersectionality, and critical consciousness literatures, we, the instructor and students together work to understand the experiences of the course and to offer our lessons learned. We present a detailed structure of the course, Experiences of Intersectionality, results of a qualitative analysis of students’ written course reflections, and instructor reflections. Three themes were extracted from the data: Vulnerability and Privilege, “Small Slaps in the Face,” and Empathy and Action. The discussion of the findings includes reflections from the course instructor and applications to praxis, particularly for educators.

Leaders and members of seven social justice-oriented divisions of the American Counseling Association (ACA) met at a Social Justice Summit called by the Counselors for Social Justice in March 2019 at the ACA National Convention in New Orleans. The goal of the summit was to create conversations among members of these seven divisions around ways to improve social justice within the ACA. These discussions at the summit were transcribed and summarized for the purpose of creating a document to outline how ACA could improve its social justice practice. The resulting call for social justice in ACA includes three topics derived from discussions of social justice in the counseling profession: social justice in the organization of ACA, social justice for the people in ACA, and social justice at the ACA conference. Implications for improved social justice practice in the organization are provided.

The current study examined the potential relationship between homelessness, gender, and occurrence of Post-Traumatic Distress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD. Participants were 90 homeless persons from shelters located in a large, South Central Texas, metropolitan city of approximately 1.9 million persons. The study found that homeless participants reported high levels of childhood emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Homeless women reported higher rates of childhood abuse and were affected by PTSD at a higher frequency than homeless males. PTSD, Complex PTSD, and traumatic experiences such as childhood abuse appear to be contributing factors to homelessness. Results suggest the need for increased advocacy among counseling and psychology professionals is warranted for homeless persons experiencing PTSD.

Students in counseling psychology have cited a desire for more opportunities to engage in social justice within their programs. Pressing national issues, such as homelessness, offer an opportunity to use transferrable psychology skills, including consultation, to address and prevent systemic oppression, while affording students necessary training. This paper describes a doctoral level counseling psychology course on social justice consultation and evaluation. The students and faculty undertook a consultation project with the city’s Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention (OHPI), where they applied a strengths-based social justice consultation model to the goal of providing recommendations to prevent homelessness. First, we set the context for homelessness in the United States and [university town]. We then outline the data consultation process and preparation/presentation of a formal report for OHPI officials, including successful outcomes from the consultation. Finally, we discuss lessons learned from the consultation project and recommendations for students and faculty who plan to implement social justice consultation into their graduate programs.