As I rotate out of the presidential trio of APA Division 17: Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP) and reflect on the work of our division over the last several years, I am proud, inspired, and appreciative. SCP has long been a division that is committed to social justice and multicultural psychology. Our values have reflected this by affirming that counseling psychologists’ work is strength-based; resiliency focused, considers context, systems, and intersecting social identities, and centers marginalized voices in respectful and intentional ways.
In the last several years, our division has worked to move these efforts even further. Together, we have been building a counseling psychology of liberationopens in new window, where dismantling anti-Black racism is centered, and understood as connecting interlocking systems of oppression impacting everyone. As a division, we have become more intentional about naming what we want to change and engaging in the challenging process of changing it. Importantly, we have understood that the process of change begins at “home.”
We began a process of investigating how anti-Black racism shows up in our division. We examined our policies, procedures, members’ experiences, and more as they relate to anti-Black racism. We committed to making changes that reflect our goal of being an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, more liberatory, counseling psychology. In that, we revisited our values, which, as noted in our preamble of our SCP Valuesopens in new window, “…center dismantling anti-Black racism as connected to liberation from all interlocking systems of oppression. These SCP values are meant to guide our work, strengthen our engagement with each other, and amplify our dreams for our counseling psychology profession as a whole.”
Our new SCP values include:
- Critical Consciousness
- Prevention
- Strength-Based
- Advocacy
- Flexibility and Adaptability
- Collectivism
- Accountability and Repairing Harm
- Liberation
- Healing
Although the values were developed in connection with my 2022-2023 SCP presidential initiativeopens in new window, they are reflective of years of heart, soul, and commitment to improving our division, profession, and the larger society, which so many in our division have undertaken. Drs. Anneliese Singh, Della Mosley, and Melanie Wilcox led the process of drafting our new values, along with the support of our SCP Social Justice Graduate Assistant, KaLynn Glasper (formerly Terrell), and many others who were willing to dream with us. Our larger SCP community also joined us for invited discussions to collectively envision what our values would look like if they truly represented the counseling psychology of liberation that we sought. Notably, this process occurred as our SCP Executive Board and leadership engaged in dialogue about what it means to dismantle anti-Black racism as a multiracial and multicultural leadership team and division. Ultimately, we engaged in a collective process that started with critical consciousness and worked toward healing, just like the values we landed on, and just as we aspire to continue doing.
If you have questions, please contact the Division 17 Engagement Liaison.
This is the first in a series of articles, based on feedback that division leaders would like to hear more from other divisions about what they have done that has worked well. If your division would like to submit an article on an accomplishment that could serve as a model for other divisions, please send it to Division Engagement.