Title: Advocacy in action - Counseling Today
Headings: Advocacy in action
Counseling Today, Cover Stories
Advocacy in action
Stopping traffic
Counseling and advocacy: Two parts of a whole
The battle for mental health
The accidental advocate
Defending counselors everywhere
Looking back, moving forward
KCA advocates for its next generation

Content: it’s a core, fundamental piece of any counseling we do with anybody,” says Fred Bemak, Chung’s research partner, frequent collaborator and spouse. Lee offers the example of a famous case in Maryland in which a mother struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck and who couldn’t afford health insurance was unable to take her son to the dentist when he got a toothache. Tragically, the tooth became infected, the infection spread to the boy’s brain and he died. “So, imagine this mom coming in for grief counseling,” Lee says. “ It’s one thing to help her process grief, but at the same time, she is stuck in a dead-end job [and] another son has never been to the dentist, so the same thing could happen to him. Grief counseling on its own is not sufficient.” But how would a counselor advocate for the client? By addressing the circumstances that led to the tragedy, Lee says. For instance, he suggests, the mother needs a better job, so perhaps the counselor could find a program that would help her upgrade her skills. The counselor could make a simple phone call to the state’s social services department to see what assistance the client might be eligible for, such as help with energy bills, emergency cash that could go toward paying rent or food stamps.