Culturally Responsive Counseling-Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity

Dr. Tamika Hibbert, drtamikahibbert@gmail.com

Culturally responsive counseling can be described as the School Counselors' ability to identify, recognize, and utilize the cultural strengths of students to increase positive outcomes. A major component of establishing a culturally responsive school counseling program involves connecting and supporting all students within the learning environment. This includes school counselors having a thorough awareness of the role that diversity, equity, and inclusion in cultivating a culturally responsive counseling environment that helps students to foster innovation, develop new perspectives, and gain further insight.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a theoretical framework that seeks to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, especially in the workplace, including populations who have historically been under-represented or subject to discrimination because of their background, identity, disability, and other reasons. School Counselors can apply this academic context to the educational environment by employing techniques to increase diversity. One approach involves providing support services to all students regardless of their background or demographics. Another strategy includes the counselor counseling making assumptions about the students based on a specific component of their lives. An example includes the school counselor presuming that a student does not want to participate in a small group session because English is not their first spoken language.

A culturally responsive counselor also recognizes the significance of utilizing inclusive methods to ensure that every student has access to the support services and resources provided by the department. Effective school counselors can attain this goal by employing the following four elements in their daily: relationships; shared experiences; advocacy, and a sense of identity. A school counselor can build relationships with students and enhance their sense of identity by being visible and available. Some of the techniques that help to build the school counselor and student relationship include introducing yourself to students and parents at the beginning of the school year, conducting large group sessions that discuss the role of the School Counselor, leading workshops, directing small group sessions that address students social and emotional matters, and arranging individual sessions that focus on academic, career and personal topics.

Additionally, counselors can boost inclusive practices through the sharing of individual and professional experiences with students and being an advocate. Using this type of approach allows students to recognize interests, qualities, and attributes they may have in common with the School Counselor. As a result, the student might feel more connected and relatable to the School Counselor. For instance, sharing information regarding your high school and college journey can provide students with the vision needed to develop short-term and long-term. Furthermore, encouraging the student throughout this process can help increase their levels of enthusiasm and motivation required to attain successful outcomes.

Lastly, it is phenomenal when School Counselors can implement the various practices previously discussed. However, it becomes obsolete if all students do not have access to the multiple services provided by the School Counseling program. Therefore, equitable measures must be employed to ensure that each student receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential. School Counselors can increase the likelihood by detecting and eradicating some of the barriers that exist in the learning environment, which include peer pressure, fear of failure, lack of self-esteem, and lack of goals and social skills.

EMBRACE Cultural Competency (Considerations for the School Counselor)

Authors: Naomi Howard, EdD; email: howardn@clarke.k12.ga.us Ervin Howard, PhD; email: Ervin.Howard@ung.edu

Cultural competence is defined as “an evolving concept that originally emerged in American healthcare provider discourse in the 1980’s as a response to concerns over health disparities observed across immigrants and persons of color” (Danso, 2018; as cited in O’Malley et. al., 2018, p. 258). It was suggested that potential nurses must possess cultural competency in order to respond effectively to the cultural needs of patients and be able to cooperate successfully with diverse members of the healthcare team (Dayer-Berenson, 2014). School counselors, administrators and educators are similar to the example of the healthcare provider in that we must not only cooperate and collaborate with diverse team members, but connect with our students and their community in order to positively affect our student’s social-emotional learning and academic achievement.

The Health Network Solutions developed strategies for cultural competency to include a variety of topics, such as value diversity, acceptance, knowledge of culture and awareness. We compiled some of these strategies along with other ideas from our professional and personal experiences for school counselors to consider as it relates to cultural competency in education. Using the acronym EMBRACE.