Systemic advocacy involves various aspects, such as inclusive leadership and clinical practice. The Socially Just and Culturally Responsive Counseling Leadership Model (SJCRCLM) will be described as a way for counselors to continue to help BIPOC LGBTQIA + individuals and families. This model has been used to discuss professional advocacy, but less to discuss client advocacy in practice. Ways to apply the SJCRCLM to BIPOC and LGBTQIA + clients, families, and communities, will be included. Understanding the advocacy needs of clients who intersect among the BIPOC and LGBTQIA + communities is crucial.

Trauma and trauma-informed care are crucial components for family counselors to know. Considering the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the counseling field is reinforced with this continued need to address trauma. This article will provide an overview of how trauma impacts the adolescent brain, how personality is shaped by trauma, and how integration of neuro-informed and trauma-informed family counseling can help young clients and their families. For practical purposes, this documentation will feature a hypothetical client with the pseudonym “Noah,” to further apply neuro-informed and trauma-informed family counseling for readers.

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Families are phenomenological and unique. All families are valuable, but historically, many family types have been underrepresented. Families with members who identify in the BIPOC LGBTQIA+ communities have historically been underrepresented and marginalized. Helping BIPOC LGBTQIA+ families involves both clinical work and advocacy. Advocacy for the professional identity of counseling, marriage and family therapy, and related helpers involves various aspects. These aspects include leadership theory and integration, importance of professional identity, the need to continue to infuse multiculturalism within the counseling and family therapy identities, and continued skills for counselors to learn inclusive advocacy. Skills and implications for advocacy as they relate to clients who intersect among the LGBTQAI+ and BIPOC communities, will be described.