Clinicians working in healthcare settings and higher education frequently support immigrant clients and students who may experience significant fear, stress, or vulnerability related to their immigration status. To provide ethically sound and culturally responsive care, it is essential for mental health professionals to understand the specific ethics and rights that protect immigrant clients—rights that ensure dignity, privacy, and continued access to services. We will review trauma-informed protocols that safeguard vulnerable clients, explore the intersection of clinical practice and legal rights, and discuss how counselors can serve as knowledgeable, rights-aware allies who advocate for the safety and well-being of immigrant communities.

Clinicians working in healthcare settings and higher education frequently support immigrant clients and students who may experience significant fear, stress, or vulnerability related to their immigration status. To provide ethically sound and culturally responsive care, it is essential for mental health professionals to understand the specific ethics and rights that protect immigrant clients—rights that ensure dignity, privacy, and continued access to services. We will review trauma-informed protocols that safeguard vulnerable clients, explore the intersection of clinical practice and legal rights, and discuss how counselors can serve as knowledgeable, rights-aware allies who advocate for the safety and well-being of immigrant communities.

Brought to you by ACA President Elsa Soto Leggett, PhD, LPC-S, RPT-S, CSC Advocacy—big and small— is a central part of the work of professional counselors. Through advocacy, we can create meaningful change around the issues that impact our clients, our community and our work. Join us for five expert-led sessions that will provide you with tangible skills and knowledge to take your advocacy efforts to the next level. Whether you’re a new or experienced advocate, you’ll deepen your understanding of advocacy as a tool to be woven into everyday counseling practice.

This article reviews current research on counseling interventions for individuals experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). Drawing from a systematic review of studies published between 2001 and 2022, the article explores effective therapeutic approaches used to support victims’ mental health and safety. Authors examine key treatment modalities, including cognitive behavioral therapy, arts-based interventions, advocacy models, and relationship education programs. The article also highlights how interventions vary depending on the type of violence present in a relationship, such as situational violence versus power-and-control dynamics. Additionally, limitations in existing research are discussed, including gaps related to diverse populations and methodological challenges. Learners will gain practical insights into evidence-informed counseling strategies that address the complex needs of IPV victims while promoting safety, empowerment, and recovery.

LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals experience disproportionately high rates of substance use concerns, behavioral/process compulsions, and relational patterns that intersect with addiction—often shaped by minority stress, trauma exposure, identity-based threat, and systemic barriers to care. Yet, these presentations are frequently misunderstood, over-pathologized, or ethically misframed in clinical practice. This video equips counselors and helping professionals with a trauma-competent, identity-affirming, and ethically precise framework for understanding and responding to addiction-related concerns in LGBTGEQIAP+ populations. Rather than relying on one-size-fits-all addiction models, the training emphasizes context, nervous system function, agency, and structural constraint as central to accurate assessment and intervention. Learners will explore substance use, behavioral/process compulsions, and relational patterns through a lens that differentiates addiction, compulsion, trauma-shaped regulation, and survival responses, including clear guidance on when addiction frameworks are appropriate and when they are not. The video integrates minority stress theory, trauma-informed and polyvagal-informed principles, and current counseling ethics to reduce documentation harm, prevent victim-blaming, and support ethical clinical decision-making. Designed for counselors across mental health, medical, educational, and community settings, this video offers practical clinical language, case-based application, and ethical guardrails to support effective, affirming care with diverse LGBTGEQIAP+ clients.

When seeking to provide holistic care, how do we understand and address the impact of religion and/or spirituality on client’s lives? This presentation describes the 2025 Spiritual/ Religious (S/R) Best Practices approved by ASERVIC (Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling), a division of ACA. The ASERVIC board created a S/R Competencies task force to review and update the 2009 competencies. The task force was charged with engaging in revisions that acknowledged cultural humility (David et al., 2018) and diversity, and included resources published during the 16 years since the 2009 version of the competencies. Structured under the Ways Paradigm (Cheston, 2000), the S/R Best Practices were organized into a three-pronged framework of: ways of being, ways of understanding, and ways of intervening. Research has shown that counselors and counselors-in-training have been hesitant to address spirituality and/or religion with clients due to lack of training (Adams, 2015; Gladding & Crockett, 2018; Henriksen et al., 2015). This was evident in a survey given by the taskforce to both members and non-members of ASERVIC (consisting of mental health professionals, counselor educators, students, supervisors, and spiritual leaders). Steps for how to implement the best practices (to learn about and grow in them) were requested along with requests for clarity across the competencies. The task force sought to address ethical use of spiritual/ religious matters in the work of counseling and in the counselor’s self-awareness of their own values in this 2025 revision of the S/R Best Practices. This presentation will review the revision process, the S/R Best Practices, and additional resources.

Advocacy doesn’t end with awareness—it has to land somewhere. This session demystifies how government works and clarifies where and how counselors can engage within legislative and regulatory systems that shape client access, professional practice, and counselor identity. Participants will explore how core counseling skills translate into effective advocacy, learn how to follow a policy issue from introduction to outcome, and identify realistic, ethical entry points for engagement. Through practical examples and guided observation strategies, counselors will build confidence engaging government systems—without needing prior political experience or expertise.

This live virtual community conversation will feature a panel of counseling professionals and published authors whose work focuses on counseling with immigrant communities. As immigration policies and public discourse continue to evolve, counselors are navigating complex clinical, ethical, and advocacy considerations. This informal and interactive session will center on the current state of immigration and its impact on clients, families, and communities. Panelists will share insights from their clinical experience, and scholarship, while responding to participant questions in real time. In this open forum, panelists will explore the realities facing immigrant clients today, discuss what they are seeing in practice, and offer perspective grounded in research, scholarship, and lived experience. Whether you work directly with immigrant populations or want to deepen your cultural responsiveness, this session offers an opportunity to learn from trusted voices in the field and connect with colleagues in meaningful dialogue

Many of us were trained to work with trauma through insight, meaning making, and narrative, yet we’ve all had moments in session where none of that seems to land. Clients may become overwhelmed, shut down, go blank, or feel “stuck,” even when they understand what’s happening to them. This Lunch & Learn takes a deeper look at what’s happening in the brain and nervous system during those moments, moving beyond basic fight-or-flight to explore how trauma disrupts brain networks involved in safety, emotion regulation, self-awareness, and connection. We’ll unpack why trauma can make the past feel like it’s happening in the present and why clients can “know” they are safe but not feel safe. The focus of this session is on translating neuroscience into what we do in the room. Participants will learn how to recognize nervous system states in real time, adjust interventions to match a client’s current capacity for regulation, and approach moments of shutdown, hyperarousal, or disconnection with more precision and compassion. This is designed for students, interns, and practicing clinicians who already have foundational trauma knowledge and are looking to deepen their clinical lens, refine their moment-to-moment decision-making, and walk away with a clearer understanding of why certain interventions help in some moments and fall flat in others.

Sexual abuse affects approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys before the age of 18, making it highly likely that counselors will work with clients impacted by sexual trauma. While many clinicians focus on disclosure and trauma processing, fewer are trained in restoring client agency, addressing shame, and integrating sexual health into treatment. This presentation examines the psychological, relational, and sexual impacts of sexual abuse and provides trauma-informed, practical interventions for restoring safety, nervous system regulation, and self-trust. Participants will gain concrete clinical tools to support clients in reclaiming agency beyond disclosure.