Multicultural Counseling

Multicultural model of counseling was developed with individuals with disabilities in mind, as well as other minorities and special needs populations. It is founded on the idea that multicultural competence rests on the ability of a counselor to integrate personal, professional and institutional contexts and suggests that change requires "affective, cognitive and behavioral learning competence" (Reza & Toporek, 2001: 13).

Further the model suggest that counselors integrate the practice of self-assessment in order to help acquire the standards necessary to address race, culture, ethnicity, disabilities and any other factors that have been recognized as critical to the counseling practice (Reza & Toporek, 2001). Perspectives in Counseling Kim & Lyons (2003) point out that a growing number of ethnic, disabled and racial minorities in the United States in recent years has necessitated increased attention in the field of counseling toward the unique needs of minorities.

In addition research findings tend to conclude that minorities whether ethnic, racial or disabled tend to generally underutilize counseling or at minimum prematurely terminate their counseling services (Kim & Lyons, 2003). Levels of multicultural competence include awareness of the issues that disabled individuals face, knowledge and skills necessary for counselors to serve these patients (Kim & Lyons, 2003).

As an increased awareness of the needs of a diverse population has surfaced within the field of multicultural counseling, many counselors have turned inward in order to better understand how they can relate to patients and assist them in rehabilitation and development. Historically in 1996 the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD) published a set of multicultural counseling competencies which were aimed at operationalizing the counseling work that counselors do in order to provide more diversity sensate counseling practices to patients (Thomas & Weinrach, 2002).

Much of the historical rationale for developing competencies have centered around the notion that the population will continue to be multicultural and that counseling interventions need to be developed that adequately address the diversity and special needs of minority populations, including disabled patients (Thomas & Weinrach, 2002). By nature counseling as a profession historically has been required to provide services aimed "at assisting people with physical, sensory, emotional and intellectual disabilities" in order to help them achieve "economic and psychological dependence" (Cook, 2000).

In modern times major issues that have come about facing multicultural counseling include addressing federal regulations in order to provide qualified professionals with the skills necessary to address the unique needs of disabled patients and to allocate potentially scarce resources to ensure "consumers receive the highest level of professional service" (Cook, 2000). Reza & Toporek (2001) note that multicultural competence requires attention to the individual's identity, beliefs, attitudes, awareness and knowledge as well as attention to local, state and national counseling requirements (p. 13).

Multicultural counseling by nature assumes that counseling professionals function within the context of personal, professional and institutional levels (Reza, et. al, 2001).

Personal context is related to the manner in which a professional is aware of the concerns within their personal life and how they conceptualize their counseling interventions; professional refers to the context of one's role as a counseling professional and is related to the knowledge or culture specific information a professional uses in the counseling environment, as well as awareness of one's own ethnicity, limitations and abilities; institutional relates to an individual's role as a member of an agency or organization providing service to the public or to private citizens (Reza et.

al, 2001). Conclusions/Analysis Multicultural counseling requires that professionals adopt key concepts and core competencies to ensure that individual's needs are served to as great an extent as possible. There is growing acknowledgement in the professional community in recent years of the need for more attention to a larger population of minority counseling patients including disabled individuals. A body of evidence suggest that professionals should consider diverse approaches to counseling individuals.