Advocating Student Within-Environment: A Humanistic Approach for Therapists to Animate Social Justice in the Schools

The authors present an overview of a therapeutic perspective for school therapists (counselors, psychologists, social workers) based on humanistic and social justice principles called Advocating Student-within-Environment (ASE). An ASE-influenced school therapist is directed by the assumption that the student has to be a participant in any social change that is proffered on that student's behalf. To operate on this assumption, an ASE school therapist is concerned with maximizing student agency by supporting the development of the student's regulatory and connectedness skills, while advocating for that student with stakeholders and through relevant social structures. In this article, the philosophic bases will be introduced, in addition to recommendations for incorporating this approach into practice in schools.