Affinity groups to build homeplace and cultural humility practices of white school counselors

ABSTRACT

Every school counselor must be fully prepared to build homeplace and Black Joy in K-12 education. For white school counselors, this requires an ongoing personal and professional commitment to cultural humility and racial identity development. Affinity groups can be an opportunity for white school counselors to develop cultural humility, racial identity, and prepare to thoughtfully engage in antiracist action with their larger school communities. In this article, we use our experience in facilitating and researching affinity groups for school counselors to provide recommendations for implementation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2023.2287648

Additional resources

1. Gonzalez, E., Sperandio, K. R., Mullen, P. R., & Tuazon, V. E. (2021). Development and initial testing of the Multidimensional Cultural Humility Scale. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 54(1), 56–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2020.1745648

Edith Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Counselor Education at Texas A&M, created the Multidimensional Cultural Humility Scale (MCHS). Before MCHS, cultural humility was measured by the client’s point of view through 5 dimensions: openness, self-awareness, egoless, supportive interactions, and self-evaluation and critique, via the Cultural Humility Scale (CHS). Yet, by only using this tool, we miss a significant component: Self-examination. Using the MCHS scale provides school counselors with a measurement tool centered on self-awareness and self-evaluation, and better understand the impact of cultural humility. Even more, using MCHS alongside CHS provides counselors the ability to understand both their perceived cultural humility through the eyes of the client, as well as their own.

2. Grodner, R., Myles, M. (n.d.) The White folks workbook. Anti-Racism Every Day. https://sites.google.com/view/antiracismeveryday/buy-printable-workbooks?authuser = 0

The White Folks Workbook is a week-by-week guide of resources, activities, and reflections for White folks trying to do the work of anti-racism. The information that will draw on important teachings of anti-racist scholars and activists along with some activities designed for White folks to complete in a journal, with an accountability partner, or in a group. The workbook will create a learning trajectory for beginning the continual work of unlearning White supremacy, reeducating oneself as a coconspirator, and developing a lifelong practice of anti-racism.

3. Singh, A. A. (2019). The racial healing handbook: Practical activities to help you challenge privilege, confront systemic racism, and engage in collective healing. New Harbinger.

A powerful and practical guide to help you navigate racism, challenge privilege, manage stress and trauma, and begin to heal. The Racial Healing Handbook offers practical tools to help you navigate daily and past experiences of racism, challenge internalized negative messages and privileges, and handle feelings of stress and shame. You’ll also learn to develop a profound racial consciousness and conscientiousness, and heal from grief and trauma. Most importantly, you’ll discover the building blocks to creating a community of healing in a world still filled with racial microaggressions and discrimination.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors.