The Assignment (2 page paper APA Style format): Title " Role of Change Theory in Social Change. Briefly describe the issues you anticipate encountering in your strategic plan for the United Nations Environmental Protection . Explain the change you thin

Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy

Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy Program Transcript

NARRATOR: Change is a process that involves leadership and collaboration. Listen as Dr. Judy Lewis explains the change process, some of the barriers to effective change, and the ethical considerations counselors must keep in mind when pursuing change.

JUDY LEWIS: Change is around us all the time. The leaves change in the fall. The weather changes with the seasons. Change is so much a part of life that sometimes it seems as though the difficult part is being able to respond and react and adjust to it.

But what we're really talking about here is purposeful change. A person, or people, decide that there is a gap between what is and what should be. There's a gap between the real and the ideal. What they want to do, then, is to find a way to bridge that gap. To find a way to make change so that the real and the ideal come closer together.

Now, once you try to do that, that's the farthest thing from easy. It's always very difficult to bring about change.

First you have to look at how you can prove that the need for change is there. You have to have a needs assessment. Why do we have to have this change? You have to come up with data that indicate that the change is necessary and possible.

But then, even though you may have the most logical story in the world, you still come up against barriers. There will be people who are uncomfortable with the change. The system fights back against it.

What you'll need to do is find ways around those barriers, especially by having allies who agree with you. Who, maybe for a different reason, are also in favor of this kind of change.

Then, working together, you need to come up with a plan for implementation. How can you make that change happen?

It's difficult. It doesn't always work. But when it works, it's really worth it. It's really worth that effort, because you've done something important.

Helping professionals bring a special flavor to the process of change. First of all, we're accustomed to change. That's what our business is. When we're working with individual clients, what are we trying to do but help them bridge a gap between a problem that they've seen in their own lives and a solution?

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Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy

Sometimes though, we realize that the solution isn't necessarily just in the hands of the client. Sometimes, we realize that there are barriers that are preventing the client from achieving his or her goals. That's when we get into social change. And we have, I think, a particular talent for that, once we get comfortable with it.

Another thing that I think is important about counselors, in particular, and social change, is that, once we have that needs assessment, we do have the skill that it takes to bring about change. We're used to having the kinds of interpersonal connections and communication styles that really are at the heart of effective change.

So we have a reason to be involved in change, and we have some skills that help us to do a good job when it comes to change.

I think of so many examples of when counselors, for instance, have been involved in social change projects that have been effective. There's one example in particular that I've always found interesting. And that is, a group of mental health counselors in a town in the Southwest. They were working with families of young people who were involved in the juvenile justice system.

What they had been told was that the problem was that these families didn't seem to be motivated, that they didn't show up with their appointments when they were supposed to see their probation agents. That they didn't follow through when they were supposed to go to various offices to take care of advocacy for their kids.

Now, what happened was that the counselors kept seeing this again and again with so many families. And they kept being told, oh, these families just aren't motivated. But they realized that there were other things that were getting in the way.

One thing was that a lot of the offices were only open during the day when the parents had to work.

Another thing was that sometimes there were long distances that they had to go and they couldn't afford it. They didn't have cars or they couldn't afford the gas. Sometimes it just was too difficult for them to do what they wanted to do to help their kids.

What the counselors did was to connect up with some community groups who had also been working on similar issues. And what they found was that they were able to bring about change by setting up offices in churches and schools that were more convenient for kids and their parents to get to.

They even got involved with changing the bus route so it was easier for the families to get to the appointments that they needed.

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Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy

This was really an amazing example that points up some real issues. One is that, you can't always know in advance what kind of change is needed. That idea about your clients being the needs assessment, that really came into play there.

Who would've guessed, if counselors started thinking about what's needed in this community, that what was needed was a change in the bus routes? But it was. And because they were listening to their clients, listening to the families that they were working with, they were able to get involved in making a difference.

There's another point, I think, that's important here with this example, too. And that is that, when you look for the source of the problem, there's a lot of pressure to look at the source of the problem within the client or within the family.

But if you open your mind as a helping professional, and look beyond the individual and beyond that family, you can see that sometimes the source of the problem is in the community. And then you can have a positive impact on a lot of clients by making a change with other community members.

A professional code of ethics has some clout in the profession. What that means is that there is a strong expectation, a requirement, that people who belong to a particular profession do their work in a way that adheres to the code of ethics.

So, if an ethical code of a profession says, for instance, that counselors must be aware of the importance of multi-culturalism and diversity in working with their clients; if the ethical code says that counselors must be able to use advocacy as needed on behalf of their clients; if the ethical code says that clients need to be seen, not as totally the source of the problem, but maybe as victims of a problem in the community; if the ethical code says that that's an expectation for what counselors should be able to do, then I think it happens.

Traditionally, the codes of ethics across most of the helping professions have dealt with, say, multi-culturalism and diversity, not from an action orientation, but from a negative. In the sense that most of the codes of ethics would say, a counselor will not discriminate against the client based on race or gender, say. It wouldn't say, the counselor must stick up for the client when the client is discriminated against by someone else.

So the focus, traditionally, has not been on change. The focus has been on avoiding hurt. I think it will be interesting to see, over the future, what happens with the codes of ethics. Because I believe that the codes of ethics should become stronger. I think they're moving in that direction. But I think they should be stronger, to indicate that a counselor must not only avoid discrimination, but must actively recognize discrimination when it's happening to client and try to do something about it.

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Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy

That reflects a change. And it's an orientation of codes of ethics toward change. And when that happens, then I think that professions will move in that direction. Because it's through the code of ethics that counselors and other professionals know what it is they have to do in order to be meeting their professional standards.

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