The need for effective career counseling and related research among Native Americans is striking. Census data show that Native Americans have the highest unemployment rates of any minority group with the exception of African American males. Unemployment approaches 50%, and the number of children living below the poverty level exceeds 50% on many reservations. Likewise
Career counseling competencies consist of the knowledge, skills, and personal attributes that career counselors need to deliver quality services to clients. Even in so-called developed countries, large portions of the population are not well served by existing approaches to delivering career development services. Articulating career development competencies that are cross-indexed to client services is a
The American Counseling Association (ACA) is the world’s largest association exclusively representing professional counselors in all their various practice settings. Founded in 1952 as the American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA), ACA changed its name to the American Association of Counseling and Development in 1983 and then to its current name, the American Counseling Association
The profession of counseling is dynamic, adaptive, and centered on meeting the needs of individuals in their particular environment. The goals of the counseling profession are directed toward assisting individuals to become self-sufficient and capable of managing their problems in efforts to lead productive, fulfilling lives. Moreover, the counseling process provides a therapeutic context to
The process of acquiring knowledge is the essence of higher education. Career decision making is a tangible expression of this process, and since almost half of all college students change majors and even more change career goals while in college, career services for higher education students are crucial to the mission of the institution. Characteristics
Conferences in the field of counseling offer students, practitioners, researchers, and scholars opportunities to gather, interact, and learn within a larger and often diverse environment. Individuals with common interests have formed societies and convened in groups for discussion and debate since the time of Socrates. In the field of psychology, the first formal meeting of
Counseling psychology was initially recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a distinct discipline of the Division of Counseling Psychology in 1944 (known initially as the Division of Personnel Psychologists). Division 17, now known as the Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP), has a membership of over 2500 psychologists. There have been four major conferences
Multicultural counseling competence—the intentional consideration and utilization of culture to facilitate therapeutic change—has become one of the most critical forces guiding the discipline of counseling psychology. In response to both the diversifying of the population of the United States and the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay and lesbian rights movements of the 1960s and
Bilingual counseling is defined as therapeutic discourse that accommodates the client’s linguistic characteristics and incorporates bilingual or multilingual factors as vital components of psychological and contextual functioning. Because language and culture are closely embedded, attention to language diversity responds to competent multicultural counseling that includes self-awareness of the counselor, knowledge of bilingual processes, and skills
Communication is difficult to define as it can be understood from a variety of perspectives. Dominic Infante, Andrew Rancer, and Deanna Womack suggest that communication occurs between humans when the meaning of symbols is manipulated to stimulate meaning. From this perspective, communication is important for promoting cooperation. Humans are social in nature and require cooperation