Promoting equity and social justice through counseling services: Lessons learned from 15 years of prevention services with underserved Latinx populations

Underserved populations within a broad range of diversity indicators (e.g., income, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation) continue to experience significant barriers to access high quality counseling services. This constitutes a pressing challenge in the field of stuttering and cluttering. In this keynote presentation, Parra-Cardona will reflect on 15 years of implementation of prevention parenting programs in the United States, Mexico, and Chile with underserved Latinx populations. He will elaborate on the importance of addressing key cultural and contextual experiences within counseling services (e.g., the ways in which discrimination negatively impacts parenting practices), the importance of embracing advocacy approaches informed by social justice as a core component of counseling services, and the need to scale-up services for populations that continue to experience significant contextual barriers to access high quality counseling services. In closing, he will reflect on the ethical mandate to develop sustainable models of intervention grounded in social justice principles, as a way of addressing the quality of life of populations that continue to be underserved and excluded from mainstream services.