Keynote Address: Ethical Responsibility and Culturally Responsive Counseling

Now more than ever there, counselors across their specializations and sites of practice, must embrace the ACA Multicultural Counseling Competencies (MCC) to be ethically responsible and culturally responsive. Through ACA-based literature and guidelines, there is greater recognition of individuals’ intersecting identities, multiple heritages, and the dynamics of implicit bias that may affect access, respect, and well-being. Power and privilege in systems of care and educational settings continue to be barriers to culturally responsive counseling across the lifespan. Thus, it becomes the ethical responsibility for counselors to recognize these barriers and engage in advocacy strategies that provide the appropriate cultural care