Lessons Learned through See the Triumph

By Allison Crowe, See the Triumph Co-founder

http://www.psysr.org/jsacp/Murray-v8n1_53-69.pdf

For those of you who have followed See the Triumph for some time, you might be aware that Christine and I are faculty members in Counselor Education programs. This means in addition to managing the See the Triumph campaign we teach graduate students, conduct research, serve on committees at our respective Universities, and participate in professional organizations at the local, state, and national level. As researchers, our main interest is the stigma that surrounds intimate partner violence and ways to overcome this. This mission is at the heart of the StT campaign, in fact.

Today, we wanted to share one of our latest articles that can be found in the Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology. In the article, we talk about our journey with beginning the campaign, and the lessons we have learned along the way. In addition to talking about the process of building the See the Triumph campaign, we also highlight the American Counseling Association’s Advocacy Competencies, and how the StT campaign lines up with each of these. We conclude the article with the lessons we have learned about advocacy, social media, and research as we have continued our journey as See the Triumph co-founders. I summarize them here, but encourage you all to check out the full article to read about this in detail.

• Lesson 1: Sometimes You Seek Out Advocacy, Sometimes It Finds You
• Lesson #2: Partnerships are Critical for Success
• Lesson #3: Large-scale Advocacy Efforts Require Substantial Time and Effort
• Lesson #4: Advocacy May Not Fit Initially in Counselors’ Job Duties, So They May Need to Advocate for Themselves to be Able to Do This Work
• Lesson #5: Advocacy Involves Exposing Oneself to New Forms of Vulnerabilities
• Lesson #6: Change is Slow
• Lesson #7: Counselors Have a Unique, Valuable Role to Play in Advocacy Work
  

As always, we thank each and every one of you for your support with the See the Triumph campaign – we couldn’t do it without you! We encourage you to check out our series this month for DVAM – the financial implications of abuse, and how it impacts survivors. Surprisingly enough, the topic of financial abuse is one that is only just now gaining in visibility, so  the more we can help increase awareness of the topic of financial abuse, the better. Happy DVAM 2016, everyone.