Social justice and counseling at Rock Springs
In today’s world, professional helpers practice with many complex and complicated demands, especially when ethically challenging and difficult situations appear. Here at Rock Springs, we have our professional codes of ethics, such as counseling (ACA) and social workers (NASW), and others. These guide us, along with our Covenant and our weekly consultation meetings. This year, we’ve been focusing special attention around the value of Social Justice, a professional and ethical principle that provides part of the foundation for how we approach supporting individuals, couples, and families.
Here is a quick recap of some of our activities:
Helping sponsor one of our practitioners to represent us at the Women’s March in DC.
Offering an anxiety relief support group called Trump Anxiety (pun intended).
Offering a family meditation workshop.
Reaffirming our openness to ALL individuals with new signage
Calling on other counseling centers to join us in promoting social justice
Continuing to hold space for individuals deeply affected by the rising tide in hate crimes, discrimination, and other fascist manifestations.
Actively promoting tolerance, inclusivity, and random acts of kindness.
We have also offered social justice training, such as a workshop on white privilege led by Dr. Bettina Love, which was held in May. Dr. Love’s workshop, We Can’t Live Without Whiteness, was an overdue reminder that our country continues to prioritize the interests of white America even when it is not in the interest of Americans. She reminded us that we continue to need new ways of actively and intentionally modeling a way of life that recognizes and appreciates the distinctiveness of all individuals.
Most importantly, we have stayed the course in preparation for offering the best help possible.
We meet monthly to discuss the book we are reading together, The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy, by Louis Cozolino, a challenging text that explores the science behind our work.
We have recruited three additional professionals for our staff, therapists Melanie Stanley-Soulen, and Tania Rochelle, as well as clinical psychologist Andy Andersen.
We are currently seeking to expand our services to different parts of the metro Atlanta area.
Looking toward summer, we’re offering a variety of growth opportunities:
We teach a simple process for balancing and re-balancing a positive approach for living, Increasing Internal Harmony. If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to us and we will send our flyer. If you are a new or returning client, you will also receive a discount code for 20% off our initial evaluation fee.
We offer Compassion Support assistance to help fund those who want and need psychotherapy and who do not have adequate financial resources to accomplish this on their own. This includes those who are going through or recovering from a divorce, those who are marginally or under-employed, those who are (re-)starting their careers, or those with medical conditions or other difficult life circumstances.
We are offering a workshop called Poetry as Survival for creative practitioners who’d like to learn to help clients process trauma through the writing of poems.
We are continuing to offer the Trump Anxiety Support as a way for people to explore and process the fears and frustrations generated by both facts and alternative facts.
Social Justice is an important, core value for us as practitioners. As we move forward this year, we’re working hard for you and for our community with compassion, care, and courage. If we can be of any help in your personal journey, we would be honored to speak with you.
