ABSTRACT
Advocacy is fundamental to counseling and transcends specialty areas and professional settings (Eriksen, 1997; Myers & Sweeney, 2004); thus, counselor education programs need to design their curricula in ways that foster the development of emergent identities as advocates and promote the implementation of advocacy skills by students. It is imperative that emerging professional counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors gain experience and training in professional, sociopolitical, and client advocacy (Lewis, Arnold, House, & Toporek, 2002). e American Counseling Association’s (ACA) advocacy competencies, as outlined by Lewis et al., have three foci: client/student advocacy, community/school advocacy, and sociopolitical advocacy. Within the eld of counseling, there is strong endorsement of a fourth advocacy focal point, specically professional advocacy (Chang, Hays, & Milliken, 2009; Myers & Sweeney, 2004; Myers, Sweeney, & White, 2002). Counselor training programs need to encompass all four areas of competence, while ensuring that emergent professional counselors and counselor educators are translating advocacy consciousness and insight into skills and actions. Counselor educators, therefore, have a responsibility to integrate advocacy-oriented experiences and assignments into the training curriculum.
