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The authors assert that the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) model and its companion documents provide school counselors with a comprehensive framework for intervening to prevent violence. This article is a brief overview of the model, the competencies, and the standards, which are used as theoretical lenses for addressing gun violence in four scenarios and reflections. The scenarios are meant to demonstrate how the four overarching constructs of the "ASCA School Counselor Competencies"--foundation, management, delivery, and accountability--and the competencies and standards of the "ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors" are critical to the mission of school counselors to create environments that foster growth and reduce gun violence against school-aged children.

Equipping future professionals and educators with critical global multicultural competences and skills to work with people from diverse backgrounds is a challenge for both predominantly White institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The major objective of this article is to introduce an adaptable model with an array of strategies from the authors' experiences teaching diversity that can be applied to teaching social justice. These strategic models and conceptual frameworks emerge from the authors' disciplines and their personal experiences as African American faculty teaching in PWIs and a HBCU. This approach is one that can be helpful to instructors, regardless of discipline, as they teach courses related to diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice. Further, the article will provide a framework for instructors to evaluate their personal approach to teaching diversity and social justice. It is particularly useful in understanding some of the resistance and negativity that are inherent in courses that challenge students' values and belief systems. Women and people of color who teach these courses may find that the authors' stories affirm and validate their own experiences in both PWIs and HBCUs. Accordingly, this article provides a provides a snapshot of a social justice, philosophical, pedagogical, and practical conceptual framework for teaching social justice to culturally diverse college students which those students in turn can use to teach their students and clients to analyze systems of inequality and discrimination.

There is an urgent need for leadership skills when facilitating communication and engendering acceptance and respect among people from culturally different backgrounds, opposing viewpoints, and vastly different experiences. Thus, when facilitating intercultural group dialogs, varying institutions, agencies, and businesses need culturally competent professionals who have excellent leadership, group, and diversity skills--even clinical skills--to work effectively with divergent communities, both internal and external, and their divergent citizens in addressing highly sensitive issues and building cross-cultural sensitivity. For such efforts to be effective, consultation services should be grounded in multiple disciplines and inclusive of many outreach activities typical of community mental health programs and centers. Such consultation skills allow the mental health professional to assume roles that range from the expert to the collegial. For these reasons these authors believe that a consultation model can be an effective tool for use when the goal is to provide safe open spaces for cultural exchange in seminars and workshops in culturally diverse and volatile climates. A consultation model that emphasizes communication and great listening and leadership skills which ultimately empower the group members is an ideal tool for raising awareness and consciousness while promoting inclusive citizenry and modeling effective intercultural communication skills. In this article, the authors provide actual scenarios as examples of "how-not-to." Also provided is an overview of the generic model with a description of the very basic steps used in mental health consultation and collaboration.

In the counternarratives shared in this article, the readers will read accounts of day-to-day realities of being a professional that will help prepare them in their professional roles as educators and counselors, in particular, the educational life experiences that influenced their professional development. Each person reflects on their life--as persons and as counselors--and shares a significant life-altering event and salutary moment that influenced who they are as a professional, therapist, and educator, redefining or affirming their oppressed identities (disability, gender, ethnicity, race, age, and sexuality). As authors, they further share how this life experience was educational and how it influenced our professional identity, development, and work as social justice advocates. Their voices convey hope, disappointment, fear, pride, and struggle that makes them unique and yet similar to others in the field. The article also offers affirmation and guidance to those interested in working in the broad field of social justice as researchers, educators, activists, practitioners, or professionals, aimed for those who would appreciate accounts of first-hand experience.

For the African-American family, life ain't been no crystal stair. The African-American family has trotted for over 400 years through a wilderness of racism, poverty, discrimination of all kinds, crossing seas of monsters and forests of demons. Yet, despite the numerous obstacles and attacks that society has mounted against it since slavery, the authors believe that the African-American family has found creative ways to survive, retain some of its African values and structure, and fulfill its functions to this society. By presenting a variety of tools such as statistics, studies, and real-life stories, this article presents culturally compatible frameworks for understanding the delivery of educational, social, and mental health services to African-American families and communities. There are very few, if any, single theoretical models unique to understanding the nature and the complexity of African-American family life. Therefore, the authors offer a combination of Afrocentric and structural functional theories as theoretical lenses to organize the discussion of the available literature on African-American families. They present them as harmonious and mutually compatible frameworks for addressing not only the social, historical, political, and economic realities of African-American family life, but also as frameworks that aggressively wrestle with interlocking agendas, identities, oppressions, realities, and the marginality of the African-American family.

Resilience refers to positive adaptation in the face of present or past adversity. It is the "ordinary magic" that rises from the minds of children and their families as they interact with their communities. Gonzales (2003) defined three major components of Resiliency Theory: (1) risk factors; (2) protective factors; and (3) developmental assets. "Risk factors" include low socioeconomic status, dropping out, participation in violent activities, recent divorce, neglect, poverty, teenage pregnancy, and teenage parenthood. ", like participation in college preparation, working with a mentor, or taking part in internship programs. Developmental assets also include behaviors like volunteering in the community and leading organizations, as well as possessing values like delaying gratification and valuing diversity. Finally, a key tenet of Resiliency Theory is a focus on what actually works in students' lives, instead of focusing on what has not worked in their lives (e.g., poverty status, at-risk behaviors, poor performance, and poor school environment). The American Psychological Association's (APA) Task Force Protective factors" help reduce the impact of risk factors, and they include support from family, friends, teachers, and community. Gonzales profiled these supportive relationships as having the following characteristics: (1) caring with high expectations; (2) a presence that produces a sense of belonging; and (3) guidance focused on increasing self-esteem. "Developmental assets" are the third aspect of resilient positive adaptation. These are behaviors and opportunities in students' lives that help them adapt to new contexts. Typically, these factors relate directly to successon Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents reported that increasingly the study of resilience is being driven by ecological models that see resilience as multilayered, including individual, environmental, and sociohistorical experiences. However, the APA report indicated that the ethnic and cultural experiences of African American youth have been left out of many of these studies. Therefore, it is important to examine the resilience ecology of students from different ethnicities and cultures who might benefit from gifted education. The focus of this study was to create a descriptive profile of African American millennials who might benefit from gifted education. The authors based the selection of variables on Resiliency Theory and on Renzulli's (1978) three-ring model of giftedness. (Contains 6 tables.)

With the increased focus on issues of diversity and multiculturalism in the United States and abroad, educators and clinicians have become more and more concerned about the feasibility and validity of their assessment instruments and practices for children and adults from nonWhite backgrounds. Many researchers emphasize that when working with racially diverse groups in multiple settings, issues relating to their cultures often differ from those of the dominant group and thus warrant different approaches and considerations. Therefore, the need to foster a multicultural perspective within educational and psychological assessment that embraces more than just test instruments is evident and paramount. For people of color, the negative and harmful effects of assessment practices reaches far beyond mere measurement and focuses on more critical issues than just testing bias. For people of color, a cultural approach to assessment must begin with a dialogue on multicultural standards, competencies, guidelines, training, and with the relevant profession for which the education and assessment is intended. Thus, a multicultural approach necessitates a moral and ethical responsibility for higher education institutions to be proponents of diversity and to prepare culturally sensitive professional educators to work with the diverse groups in the society. This study gleans from professional people of color in the field of education their experiences and perceptions of contemporary assessment instruments and practices and the relative influence these practices exert on people of color.

Throughout the country and especially in Texas, local communities opened their arms to hurricane Katrina evacuees. Like the federal government, emergency health and mental health entities were unprepared for the massive numbers of people needing assistance. Mental health professionals, though armed with a wealth of crisis intervention information, weren't equipped with skills for either anticipating or assessing the effects of the relocation of evacuees into local communities on the mental health of the humanitarian host communities. Yet, the response to the disaster was as unprecedented as the widespread devastation of the hurricane. Likewise, the generosity of people was unprecedented; individuals, the media, celebrities, businessmen, states, cities, towns, the international world, community organizations, faith-based institutions, public schools, colleges and universities all rallied around rescuing the refugees. Yet, despite good intentions and in spite of the massive efforts to get people to safety with food, water, and crisis intervention counseling, communities were stressed and strained. In Texas, government officials and local governments needed money to provide basic health and mental-health care for evacuees, but also accommodations for the new students placed in Texas' schools. As a consequence of the rapid depletion of the state's resources, responding to the disaster took its toll on Texas and Texas communities. For Katrina victims and the people and communities responding to the disaster, the psychological implications are yet unknown, but are guaranteed to be tremendous, now and in the months and years to come. Therefore, incorporating mental health services for individuals and communities that address race, class, and culture is a critical component of comprehensive crisis mental health services to the evacuees, their families, and the communities that housed them. This article introduces a crisis mental health service delivery model for addressing the devastating effects of disasters, like Katrina, on communities, specifically humanitarian host communities, a model that address inherent cultural issues.

This article concerns the tragedy of the misuse of power and the power of imagined inferiority. African Americans must lose misconceptions about the majority, heighten understanding about being Black in America and how that makes their children vulnerable to this nation's worst, stop fighting losing battles like affirmative action, and find and maintain a position of power and strength. Here, the reader should note that the full onus of responsibility is on African Americans, and the authors believe that the place to begin is in the schools that serve the African American community. To a large degree, African Americans have misjudged and over intellectualized racism, to the point of excusing it. Just as there is no excuse for racism, there is no excuse for African Americans becoming emotionally dependent on it. This is not blaming the victim; this is directing the victim on how to fight back. The words of the old Nigerian proverb apply here: you cannot just blame the rat.

Due to changing demographics in the K-12 student population contrasted with the homogeneous population of prospective teachers, the uncertainty about teacher preparedness to meet the needs of diverse student populations remains a controversial educational issue. Teacher educators have continued to question whether preservice teachers presently in schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) have the requisite skills and the necessary sensitivity toward racial and cultural diversity to meet the challenges associated with effectively teaching culturally diverse students. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to address safe ways to prepare preservice teachers, specifically White teachers, but not limited to that ethnicity, who will teach in schools with an increasingly culturally diverse student population, particularly people of color. In an effort to meet the challenge of training educators to effectively teach culturally diverse students, the authors have created a culture specific pedagogical counseling (CSP) model. It is designed to address the construct of diversity-sensitive training as a possible factor for the P-12 prospective teachers' lack of efficacy toward teaching culturally and racially diverse students. Thus, the goal of the CSP model is to increase the comfort level of White preservice teachers (or teachers of any cultural, racial, and ethic background with limited exposure to culture differences) when interacting with people of color and people from diverse backgrounds. Before introducing the model, the authors provide the reader with background information (e.g., philosophy, theories, and history) that influenced the shaping of the model. This includes culture specific pedagogy and Black pedagogy theories, counselor and teacher education diversity training models, teacher preparation, historical and current demographic trends, and segregated schools and the "Brown vs. the Board of Education" decision.

The authors examined the help-seeking attitudes of 109 Chinese international students studying in the United States. Results revealed that significant relationships exist among acculturation, ethnic identity, English proficiency, and attitudes toward seeking professional counseling services. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Using the lessons learned from mistakes made in their earlier clinical work with African American families, through the lens of Multicultural Counseling and Therapy theory, these culturally diverse practitioners use reflections from their counseling experiences to offer clinicians a people-responsive, diversity-sensitive framework and provide recommendations for working with African American families in school and community counseling settings.

Working with communities of color to find solutions to the problems they face is a complex and challenging task. The "It Takes a Village" concept and the Transtheoretical Model of Change (Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente 1994) were used by the authors of this article in their work to empower clients of color to effect in their communities. The narratives by these authors, European-American and African-American practitioners and educators, incorporate accounts of advocacy and social justice initiatives as they describe their interactions with grassroots organizations, such as educational and faith-based institutions, within communities of color.

The author uses her personal experience as a co-facilitator of color of groups consisting of predominantly White members to discuss the literature on the group dynamics of multicultural counseling and to identify unique and common issues for diverse counselors facilitating White and culturally different race groups. Included in the discussions of group dynamics, but often not addressed in counseling groups, are the attitudes and perceptions expressed by both clinicians and group members concerning their experiences of racism, prejudice, and oppression.

A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more. (Jeremiah 31:15) 'Aretha, tell [...]

Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards all torn up, And places with no carpet [...]

This article utilizes Stone's (1979) treatise on the absence of female consciousness as a theoretical framework to rekindle the conversation on how the residual effects of racism and sexism and the racial and sexual discrimination existing in the American society and in both the feminist and Black movements render African American females and Black feminism virtually invisible in mainstream politics and economics. It links African American women's limited participation in first and second wave White feminism and their continued lack of visibility in third wave feminism in therapy and education to their earlier experiences with White feminism and Black Sexism., Introduction Georgia Douglass Camp Johnson (1918), an African American female poet wrote, 'The heart of a woman goes forth with dawn,/ as a lovebird, soft winging, so restlessly on./ A [...]

Diversity means inclusivity--every voice should be at the table and should be heard including underrepresented groups such as people of color, women, GLBTs, elderly people, poor people, people with disabilities, [...]

George Bush does not care about Black people. --Kanye West Nervously blinking with hands stuffed into his pants and his courage mustered into action, he rambled his brief complaint. Deep [...]

This Special Issue on Hurricane Katrina was conceived as a vehicle to address some of the multicultural and ethical considerations that were present or inherent--but not yet fully addressed--in this [...]

OVER THE YEARS, I, LIKE OTHER SCHOLARS, HAVE HAD MY SHARE OF MANUSCRIPTS rejected by research journals. Often, the feedback from editorial review boards is constructive and extremely valuable in [...]

The article discusses the effectiveness of a mental health consultation model focusing on communication and listening, as well as leadership skills to facilitate volatile intercultural diversity group dialogs. Also cited are the definition by author and consultant P. Block of consultation, the racial issues of the twentieth century as cited by author W. E. B. Dubois, and the steps of the generic consultation model, including entry, diagnosis, and implementation.

Women of color (scholars and an administrator) from different cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds and disciplines within academe share their personal and professional experiences in higher education from their unique cultural and discipline perspectives. The article focuses on strategies that women of color in academia can use to integrated their multiple identities, transgress marginalities, cross boundaries, and subsequently, find a sense of self-definition in predominantly White institutions and contexts. It culminates with recommendations for combating problems associated with marginalization and oppression of women of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores racial aspects of educational assessment tools and how race can impact the success and failure of educational evaluation. A study is presented that indicates people of color and marginalized backgrounds view educational assessment as a harmful force. The author suggests that a multicultural and pluralistic approach to educational assessment will reflect a well-rounded cross-cultural perspective. The article also discusses aspects of the study such as methodology, language bias, data analysis, and ethical considerations of qualitative inquiry.

An essay is presented that interprets various literary texts and popular commentary in order to explore the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its cultural implications. The authors analyze statements made by rapper Kanye West, the myth of Narcissus as told by educator Edith Hamilton, and a scene from the film "O Brother Where Art Thou?" by the Coen brothers and suggest the need for African Americans to engage with their communities and support each other.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Bolanle Olaniran on the crisis management strategies put into action following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, another by Aretha Faye Marbley on mental health services for disaster victims and host communities, and a poem by Maria Crosby.