Advocacy Competency of School Counselors: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

Added July 12, 2017

 

As students with marginalized identities diversify the United States, school counselors face more challenges requiring their advocacy efforts. Using social justice and advocacy research as a guide, the researchers purport that students in k-12 settings who are experiencing marginalization need advocates (Crethar, 2010; Lee, 2012; Field & Stanley, 2004; Ratts, DeKruyf, & Chen-Hayes, 2007; 2010). School counselors are ideally positioned to take on the charge (Singh, Urbano, Masten, & McMahon, 2010). However, more standardized measures are needed to ascertain how school counselors perceive their role as advocates in schools. Researchers performed an exploratory factor analysis to examine which factors encompass school counselor advocacy competency and how the identified factors align with the six levels of the ACA advocacy competencies.

Five factors were identified by the researchers, including Collaboration with School Groups, which measures school counselors’ ability to actively collaborate with school groups, listen, and identify group members’ strengths and resources (Singh, Urbano, Masten, & McMahon, 2010); Political and Social Action, which measures school counselors’ ability to work with allies to address and change oppressive structures in schools and prepare data and justifications to change the system (Crethar, 2010; Lee, 2012); Individual Student Empowerment, which measures school counselors’ ability to empower students on a microlevel, as evidenced by their ability to identify students’ strengths, resources, and influential external factors (Ratts et al., 2007, 2010; Singh, Urbano, Masten, & McMahon, 2010); Actions to Reduce Achievement Barriers, which measures school counselors’ ability to develop and carry out plans to confront environmental barriers (Singh, Urbano, Masten, & McMahon, 2010); and Media Advocacy, which measures how counselors use public information methods to advocate via the Internet, television, and printed media (Crethar, 2010).

This study offers several important implications for practicing school counselors. The SCAA could be used to examine how school counselors perceive their ability to advocate for students at the micro and macro levels, and provide counseling services to address the needs of academically challenged and marginalized students. The SCAA can help supervisors identify strategies for school counselors to address systemic obstacles and concerns that perpetuate societal oppression and marginalize particular groups of students pedagogically and socially. In addition, the SCAA may be used as a systemic tool for districts to evaluate school counselors and to use the data to enhance school services and student resources.

This study illuminates potential foci for school counselors in training related to advocacy and social justice. For instance, Steele (2008) developed a Liberation Supervision model for counselor training, where the first phase includes supervisors initiating explorations of supervisee knowledge and history of dominant U.S. values. The current assessment could serve as a meaningful appraisal of supervisees’ advocacy competency during this initial phase of social justice-oriented supervision; also, supervisors might also use the current assessment as a pre- and post-test of school counselor trainee competency. The assessment could also be integrated into continuing education opportunities related to school counselor advocacy, as a way to initiate discussions about current advocacy competency and to set target learning goals for their advocacy competency development. Finally, the SCAA may allow school counselors to identify their advocacy strengths and limitations (Ratts et al., 2007), which in turn can help school counselors determine which advocacy and social justice elements to incorporate into their comprehensive school counseling programs.

doi: 10.5330/1096-2409-20.1.149

Natoya Hill Haskins, Ph.D., assistant professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, and Anneliese Singh, Ph.D., professor and associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA.

 

Source:

Natoya Hill Haskins, Ph.D., and Anneliese Singh, Ph.D.