Advancing Social Justice Abstract Social injustices pose barriers to the health and well-being of many clients. In the last several decades, competencies for multicultural counseling have been defined. However, these frameworks have not been expanded to include competencies for social justice or to assess practitioner attitudes, knowledge, or skills in this area. Social justice competencies aim to move applied practice beyond individual client empowerment to community empowerment, advocacy, and activities designed to impact the systems that support both privilege and oppression based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, social class, age, and other cultural identities. This study is a comparative, cross-national study of career counsellors’ competencies related to social justice. Advancing Social Justice in Career Counselling Dr. Sandra Collins, Athabasca University; Dr. Nancy Arthur, University of Calgary, Dr. Mary McMahon, Queensland University, and Suzie Bisson, University of Calgary Findings Key findings from the needs assessment, barriers assessment, and critical incidents: Implications Career practitioners’ perspective on the importance of social justice to career development is higher than their perceived competence levels. Career practitioners’ knowledge and skills tend to be focused predominantly on work with individual clients even though their attitudes are broader. Career practitioners appear to be disempowered in regards to advancement of the social justice agenda. Most career practitioners are familiar with the concept of social justice; however, most lack professional training in social justice practice. Objectives To develop an assessment tool for evaluating social justice competencies of career counsellors. To document best of practices for integrating social justice into career interventions. To document barriers for career counsellors to applying social justice competencies in career interventions. To conduct a needs assessment of career counsellors to inform future pre-service and continuing education programming. Assessment of Social Justice Competencies Practitioners placed the most importance on social justice attitudes and the least importance on social justice skills. Similarly, they rated themselves as more competent on attitudes than on knowledge and least competent on social justice skills. There was consistent correlation between importance and practitioner competence for attitudes but no correlation for almost half of the skills. Importance Competence Correlation Attitudes Moderately high to very high Average to moderately high All but one Knowledge Average Most Skills Average to very high Moderately low to average Just over half Defining Social Justice Key principles of social justice supported: 1. fair and equitable distribution of resources and opportunities; 2. direct action to ameliorate discrimination, oppression, and marginalization within society; and 3. full inclusion and participation of all members of society in a way that enables them to reach their full potential and human rights. Familiarity with Social Justice Issues Only 14% of participants were very familiar; 53% were somewhat familiar; and 28% were somewhat or very unfamiliar. Social Justice Interventions (Critical Incidents) Most target change at level of individual client; Less than 1/3 targeted community change; Less than 1/5 targeted organizational change; Less than 1/10 targeted broader systems. Barriers to Social Justice Agenda Lack of time; Lack of financial resources; Lack of professional influence or power; Lack of training; Lack of support from colleagues; and Lack of support from supervisor. Social Justice Competencies - Core Factors Equal worth and rights of all people; Professional responsibility for social injustices; Respect for client perspectives on meanings and limitations of career; Relationship of cultural group membership to social and economic privilege; Systemic barriers and facilitators of social justice; Perpetuation of inequities through organizational, community, and broader social, economic, and political systems; Relationship of cultural identity to career decision-making; Impact of discrimination on career development; Expansion of professional roles; Client empowerment and cultural autonomy; Assessment and intervention targeting organizational, community, and broader social, economic, and political systems; Ethical decision-making related to social justice interventions; and Advocacy for social justice agenda within the profession and beyond. Training in Social Justice 38% had attended a workshop on social justice; 27% had attended a course. Method Instrument: A review of career, multicultural, and social justice literature lead to a matrix of social justice competencies. A modified Delphi panel of ten experts provided content validation. The final version of the online questionnaire had 41 competency statements. Perceived barriers to social justice intervention and critical incident samples were included. Participants: 209 career practitioners participated, 87% from Canada and 13% from Australia. Canadian data is presented here. Participants were predominantly women (77%), in the 30-50 year old bracket (90%). Data collection: Data was collected through an online survey. Participants were asked to rate each competency statement on two Likert scales for importance to career counseling and practitioner competence and to provide both positive and negative critical incidents. Conclusions The social justice agenda requires professionals to examine social structures that perpetuate power differences and to make an effort to ameliorate social inequities. Career counselling is limited if it cannot deal with fundamental issues of injustice that adversely impact clients. Applying a lens of social justice optimizes client success and changes the conditions that create client distress. Career practitioners must be educated and empowered to engage in social justice interventions in their work with individual clients and to promoting change in social, economic, and political conditions. Contact Information Dr. Sandra Collins Athabasca University Phone: 1-403.263-8312 Email: sandrac@athabascau.ca Acknowledgement: This research was made possible through a grant provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.