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The recent endorsement of the advocacy competencies by the American Counseling Association signals their relevance to the school counseling profession. This article outlines the importance of being a social change agent, the value of advocacy in K-12 schools, and how school counselors can use the advocacy competencies as a framework for promoting access and equity for all students. Implications for professional school counselors and school counselor educators in using the advocacy competencies are also addressed.
Social justice advocacy is a key task of the 21stcentury professional school counselor. Calls for school counselors to adopt social justice advocacy as a platform have been well documented (Bailey, Getch, & Chen-Hayes, 2007; Brown, 2005; House & Martin, 1999) and are supported by national organizations such as the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2004, 2005) and the Education Trust (2006). The need is for school counselors to embrace a social justice advocacy perspective and help lead school reform efforts to challenge educational inequities such as achievement gaps stemming from the less than ideal learning environment that is prevalent in many schools (Bemak & Chung, 2005; Cox & Lee, 2007). Social justice advocacy is warranted to right injustices, increase access, and improve educational outcomes for all students. To this end, professional school counselors can serve as agents for social change by using the American Counseling Association's (ACA) advocacy competencies (see Appendix A) as a framework for executing social justice advocacy strategies (Ratts, 2006). The proposal that school counselors incorporate the advocacy competencies into their practice seems timely given their endorsement in 2003 by the ACA Governing Council (2003).
This article provides a conceptual framework for how the ACA advocacy competencies can meet the growing demand for professional school counselors to be social justice advocates. Specifically, this article outlines the importance of being a social change agent and the value of advocacy in K-12 schools. It also provides a rationale for the competencies as well as a brief overview of their development. In addition, this article offers examples of how school counselors can use the framework of the advocacy competencies to promote access and equity for all students. Implications also are addressed for using the advocacy competencies in the school counseling profession as well as in school counselor training programs.