Factors Related to Social Justice Advocacy Among Play Therapists

The changes in the United States demographics and the increased number of minority children with low socioeconomic status have raised concerns about children's well-being. Approximately 27% of children present with mental health issues (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]; 2018). To address mental health issues among children, play therapy has emerged as a major area in the counseling field because it is a developmentally appropriate intervention to address the psychological needs of children (Landreth, 2012; Reddy et al., 2014). Since play therapists work closely with children and understand their needs, they are able to best advocate on behalf of the children (Kolos, 2009). For this reason, it is essential to continue investigating factors that may influence their social justice advocacy. The purpose of this study was to investigate how race, attitudes toward poverty, color-blind attitudes, and multicultural education were related to social justice advocacy among play therapists. A standard multiple regression was conducted to analyze the data that were collected from 196 participants. The results indicated that color-blind attitudes and multicultural activities/workshops contributed significantly to the prediction of social justice advocacy. These variables accounted for 12% of the variance. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.