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This article describes the initial development of the School Counseling Advocacy Assessment to measure school counselor advocacy competency and includes the psychometric results regarding the reliability and factor structure. An exploratory factor analysis revealed a five-factor model that accounted for 71% of the variance. The subscales are Collaboration with School Groups, Political and Social Actions to Change the System, Individual Student Empowerment, Actions to Reduce Achievement Barriers, and Media Advocacy. The authors discuss implications for school counselors and school counselors in training.

During the last decade, the school counseling profession has explicitly embraced advocacy as an essential role and expectation (Crethar, 2010; Feldwisch & Whiston, 2016; Field & Baker, 2004; Lee, 2012; Ratts, DeKruyf, & Chen-Hayes, 2007; Ratts & Ford, 2010; Singh, Urbano, Haston, & McMahon, 2010). However, little research relates to the measurement of school counselor advocacy competency (Wood, 2012) and the measurements that exist were not specifically developed to measure school counselor advocacy competency, have low reliability and validity, or have not been validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop instrumentation designed to measure school counselor advocacy competency as defined by the American Counseling Association's (ACA) advocacy competencies.

Counseling scholars addressed the necessity of advocacy as a major role of counselors by initiating an ACA task force in 2000. This development was in response to the continued reliance of the counseling profession on the use of individual counseling techniques to address client or student concerns without attention to the mechanisms of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism) influencing these concerns (Trusty & Brown, 2005). In 2003, ACA endorsed advocacy competencies developed by the task force for the counseling profession (Lewis, Arnold, House, & Toporek, 2003), thereby signifying the increased role of advocacy in the counseling field and the importance of preparing counselors to be social justice advocates.

The ASCA National Model (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2005; 2012) embedded advocacy as a significant role of school counselors; therefore, the ability to assess the degree to which school counselors reflect advocacy competency in their practice is critical (Holcomb-McCoy, 2007). In the ASCA National Model, advocacy is integrated into all aspects of the school counselor's role (Field & Baker, 2004; Wood, 2012). For instance, school counselors' advocacy efforts are aimed at (a) eliminating barriers...

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