Advocacy for Clients: Promoting Action in Your Organization

Professional Context

According to Migration Policy Institute (MPI, 2018) the US “has been the top destination for international migrants since at least 1960, with one-fifth of the world’s migrants living there as of 2017. Despite its long history of immigration, the United States has oscillated between perceiving immigration as a valuable resource and as a major challenge” (para 1). MPI reported that as of 2016 nearly 44 million immigrants were residing in the US comprising 13.5% of the population. Further, according to the 2017 Current Population Survey, immigrants and their US-born children comprised 27% of the US population (86.4 million people).

According to Sue and Sue (2016) reasons for migration include escaping poverty or political unrest and seeking a better quality of life. Yet conditions for immigrants to the US, especially for undocumented immigrants, may include poverty-level wages, sexual abuse or gang violence, and or lack thereof health insurance. Given the large percentage formed by immigrants in our society, it is critical for counselors and therapists to understand the historical and sociopolitical factors, cultural and gender characteristics, and resulting implications for effective counseling or therapy and advocacy with immigrants and their US-born children.

Scenario

Your Site Supervisor has been observing your counseling or therapy practice with diverse clients on site over the quarter. She notes that you have consistently taken care to consider how your worldview influences your counseling or therapy practice and that you have also been conscientious in building your awareness, knowledge, and skill of the diverse clients assigned to you.

She anticipates a position will be opening up soon and sees an opportunity for you to showcase your expertise. Since there has been an increase in clients from local immigrant and refugee populations in the past year and the team would all benefit from what you have learned, she asks you to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for an upcoming team meeting.

Since there is a full agenda for the team meeting the two of you meet to develop a brief list of topics that will be most helpful for the team.

Reference

Migration Policy Institute. (2018). Frequently requested statistic on immigrants and immigration in the United States. Retrieved from: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently…

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Assignment Instructions

Create a PowerPoint presentation and speaker notes in a Word document that succinctly convey the challenges faced by an immigrant or refugee population (you may choose a population that was presented in Riverbend City: Experiences and Challenges in Help Seeking Among Immigrants and Refugees, your textbook, or one of relevance from your own life or professional experience), as well as the counselor or therapist’s and organizational roles in helping individuals and families meet and overcome these challenges. Your PowerPoint should also provide some education regarding strategies and resources for working with an immigrant or refugee population.

For the challenges faced by your chosen population, you may select from content from the Riverbend City media piece, your textbook, outside literature, or personal experiences.

In your presentation, make sure you address the following:

• Describe the characteristics and concerns of an immigrant or refugee population.
• Identify roles and strategies for a counselor or therapist to adopt that could help address the challenges for immigrant families related to acculturation.
• Explain the challenges and barriers for a selected population with regards to optimal development, mental health, and help-seeking.
• Present the counseling or therapy practice implications that are key for team members in order to effectively assess and work with individuals and families from a selected population.
• Advocate for resources the agency needs to increase the accessibility of services and more effectively serve the population.
• Communicate a presentation in a manner that effectively informs the audience about culturally alert practices, is appealing visually, as well as persuasive and respectful in its message.

The Unit 9 – Advocacy Presentation Sample Template (linked in the resources) provides you with an example structure for this assignment. It also provides some guidance, or ideas, about what you might want to include in each section in order to successfully address all of the scoring guide criteria for the assignment.

If you would like additional information about using PowerPoint the Microsoft Office Software Tutorials linked below has a number of links and resources that you may find useful.

Submission Requirements

Your PowerPoint should meet the following requirements:

• Template: Use the template provided in the resources.
• Length: A minimum of 7–10 bulleted slides.
• Notes: Speaker notes that fully explain each slide.
• Written communication: Written communication must be grammatically correct and free of errors that detract from the overall message. Writing should be consistent with the graduate-level scholarship.
• APA formatting: Appropriate APA citations and peer-reviewed references on each slide, as well as a reference list slide at the end, as necessary.
  • You may wish to review the following APA resource (linked in the Resources) if you have questions about APA style or formatting:
    • APA Style and Format
• Number of resources: A minimum of five scholarly resources from peer-reviewed journals published within the past 5–7 years. Distinguished submissions typically exceed this minimum.

SafeAssign

You are required to submit a draft of your assignment to SafeAssign prior to submitting it for grading. Submit your work as a draft to check for any necessary edits.

Once the assignment is finalized and all edits have been made, submit the final version to your instructor for grading using the following file naming format: Your_Name_AssignmentNumber_Assignment_Title (for example: Ima_Learner_u03a1_Assignment_Title).

Verify you have reviewed your SafeAssign draft report by providing the following comment in the assignment area: “I verify that I have reviewed the SafeAssign draft report for this assignment and this work meets academic honesty expectations.”

Resources