New Development in Legal Advocacy

Mental health service users are voicing the need for advocacy which is responsive to the social oppression they encounter in their lives, and within services. The Kent Law Clinic provides free, independent legal representation for people with a mental illness or a learning difficulty. This article describes the development of the Clinic and some of its work.     

An Ethical Imperative: Effectively Reducing SGM Disparities Utilizing a Multi-Level Intervention Approach

Health disparities for sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations are well documented and manifest systemically. Mental health professionals have begun working to address these disparities, demonstrating efforts to more effectively define and increase competency in SGM health and by adapting existing evidence-based interventions to more effectively target the unique needs of the SGM community. While such efforts are necessary, they inadequately address the systemic nature of the problem, placing an unnecessary burden on SGM individuals to tolerate systemic discrimination, injustice, and inequality. The current special series attempts to address this gap by featuring papers that describe multilevel (e.g., micro, mezzo, macro) intervention approaches to reduce SGM health disparities. We argue that advocacy is inherent to the work, and we hope that this special series will empower mental health professionals to engage in multilevel, systemic interventions as an ethical imperative.     

Sleep and Aging: Challenges and Recommendations for Middle‐Aged and Older Adults

Understanding and alleviating sleep problems for middle‐aged and older adults is addressed through discussion of the following topics: age‐related sleep changes; gender considerations; interactions among sleep, mental health, and physical illness; lifestyle and sleep; and assessment and treatment recommendations.     

Reentry as Experienced by Women in Jail: Advocating for Change

We conducted a phenomenological study with 35 women in a substance abuse treatment jail program about their lived experiences in preparing for reentry. The women addressed their past, the needs of their families, and education of criminal justice personnel, providers, and the whole citizenry. The women advocated for effective reentry practices.     

Advocating for Atheist Clients in the Counseling Profession

Atheism is a controversial topic, with individuals who identify as atheist reporting high rates of discrimination. Despite increasing literature discussing religious/spiritual views and beliefs, few scholarly discussions of atheism in the counseling field can be found. Counselors need to be made aware of the issues facing atheist clients and educated on the best interventions to use in collaborative work with clients. Counselors should also be prepared to advocate for atheist clients in multiple domains. This article aims to explore the relevant literature around atheism, identify implications for counselors, and provide a path to advocacy for counselors in their work with atheist clients.     

Change schools through revolution,not evolution

The school's traditional practices are linked to current failures and to the limited prospects of future success. The major problems with current school practices are: adopting instructional programs that have never been fieldtested and revised on the basis of data; using diagnostic practices that blame the child as being the sole cause of poor performance; using testing techniques that do not imply curricular remedies; promoting children beyond their grade-level performance; failing to provide teachers with effective training and monitoring. Recommendations for changing the system to become accountable and databased include: bringing pressure from outside the system; lobbying for alternatives to public schools; promoting intervention by the board; involving parents in union negotiations; establishing committees of expert teachers to review administrative proposals and report to the board. The central feature of the plan is to fire administrators who fail to meet attainable student-achievement goals. This practice would ensure that administrators are reinforced when children succeed, a feature that is not part of current practices.     

Advancing access to Medicare-funded mental health treatment during the opioid epidemic: A counselor advocacy analysis

Although advocacy is a priority for counseling professionals, little is known about counseling advocates’ participation in the legislative advocacy process. Recent legislation to address the opioid crisis allowed counseling advocates to provide public comments to advance counselor inclusion in the Medicare program. A thematic analysis of 548 public comments provided on behalf of the counseling profession yielded four categories: advocacy on behalf of (1) the proposed rule change; (2) broader Medicare inclusion; (3) the proposed rule change with an additional request for broader Medicare reimbursement; and (4) no clear advocacy. Subthemes included increasing access to care, qualifications necessary to provide care, and the urgency of the opioid epidemic, among others. Implications for the counseling profession and counselor advocacy are discussed.     

Sequence and Timing of Three Community Interventions to Domestic Violence

Community responses to domestic violence typically involve the introduction of multiple interventions. Yet very little is known about the impact of the timing and sequencing of these interventions on community outcomes. A reason for this is the inherent limitations of traditional methods in social science. New methods are needed to understand the effect of varying the sequence and timing of interventions. This study responds to the issue by introducing system dynamics as a method for modeling community interventions. The paper presents a model of domestic violence cases moving through a criminal justice response, and uses the simulation model to evaluate the impact of implementing three interventions—mandatory arrest, victim advocacy, and changes in level of cooperation—on two system-level outcomes: improving offender accountability and increasing victim safety. Results illustrate the complex nature of these relationships. Implications for community practice and future research are also discussed.     

The influence of implicit theories and message frame on the persuasiveness of disease prevention and detection advocacies

This research investigates the effectiveness of health message framing (gain/loss) depending on the nature of advocacy (prevention/detection) and respondents’ implicit theories (entity/incremental). Three experiments demonstrate that for detection advocacies, incremental theorists are more persuaded by loss frames. For prevention advocacies, incremental theorists are more persuaded by gain frames. For both advocacies (detection and prevention), entity theorists are not differentially influenced by frame. However, entity theorists are message advocacy sensitive such that they are more persuaded by prevention than detection advocacies, regardless of the message frame. These results are robust for measured as well as manipulated implicit theories and for different health contexts.     

Evaluating Addictions Counseling Programs: Promoting Best Practices,Accountability, and Advocacy

Program evaluation offers several benefits to addictions counselors, including identifying best practices, providing accountability to stakeholders, and advocating for minority client populations. This article reviews the benefits of addictions counseling program evaluation and outlines main steps in the evaluation process.