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Editor's Notes

• #2: Welcome! This presentation is being recorded in the fall of 2015 for those who would like to learn more about Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors in California. My name is Dean Porter and I am the Executive Director of the California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors (CALPCC).
• #3: CALPCC is the successor to the California Coalition for Counselor Licensure, which advocated for 5 years in the State Legislature to get this licensure bill passed.
• #4: Each state now licenses 3 mental health professions at the master’s level, LPCs, LMFTs, and LCSWs. LPC is the most commonly used term for professional counselors, but some states, like CA, have added the word clinical or mental health to the LPC. In 2013 there were over 126,000 LPCs, about 58,000 LMFTs, over 225,000 LCSWs in the country, according to the American Counseling Association. In 2015 CA has over 1,300 LPCCs, while it has over 38,000 LMFTs, which is more than half the LMFTs in the country. LMFTs got an early start in CA. CA also has over 23,000 LCSWs.
• #5: California was the first state to license LCSWs in the 40s, and LMFTs in the 60s, and the last state to license LPCCs at the end of 2009.
• #6: This is where I got involved. It did not seem right that there was no license for experienced licensed counselors coming to California from other states. So, we formed the California Coalition for Counselor Licensure, comprised of 12 CA professional associations.
• #7: The California Coalition spent two years in preparation and then five years in the legislature until the third bill passed. The reason it took so long to get a counselor licensure bill passed, was that it had opposition from some of the sister professions. While the Social Workers were neutral and the psychiatrists agreed early on to support the license, if our Interns would earn 150 supervised hours in a hospital or community mental health setting, we had to take restrictions in our scope of practice from the psychologists and from one LMFT association, and agree to grandparent LMFTs for a short time with the other MFT association. The bill passed at the end of 2009 and became law in 2010.
• #8: Once the bill passed, the Coalition became a membership association, now known as CALPCC, that would protect and support the new license. It took two years for the Board of Behavioral Sciences to develop regulations and applications before they could issue the first licenses in 2012. The next milestone was 2014, when the Department of Health Care Services in California determined that LPCCs could be reimbursed by Medi-Cal. In 2015….
• #9: According to the American Counseling Association, ….
• #10: The 2014 American Counseling Association Code of Ethics is used across the nation for LPCs and it is used as the standard of practice for LPCCs in California by the BBS and by CALPCC. This ethical code is used in the California LPCC Law & Ethics Exam. This Ethical Code can be downloaded from the ACA or CALPCC websites.
• #12: This additional education and training is the result of a compromise with the CA Chapter of AAMFT in order to get the LPCC bill passed in the legislature. This additional education and training is only required if a LPCC wants to see couples and families. It is not required for the LPCC license. No other state requires LPCs or interns to have additional education and training in order to provide couple and family therapy. Note that supervised hours with children count toward this requirement. This is confusing, since LPCCs and PCCIs are already allowed to work with children, but this is what is allowed for MFTIs, so PCCIs inherited it.
• #13: So, what does collateral services mean? When working with an individual, LPCCs or PCCIs can have contact with the family, including treatment planning, recommending resources, monitoring progress, or termination and aftercare planning. LPCCs ad PCCIs can provide couple and family therapy if………. LPCCs can provide So, currently only a LMFT or a LPCC, who has met the additional MFT education and training requirements can supervise the 500 hours. As of January 2016, a new BBS regulation will add LCSWs, clinical psychologists and board certified psychiatrists, who are competent to practice marriage and family therapy, as possible supervisors of LPCCs or PCCIs earning the 500 MFT hours. The rationale is that while CA LPCCs have this MFT restriction in their Scope, the other professions do not. :-) Although it is a good idea to have completed some of the MFT coursework before beginning the 500 hours, the new regulation does not specify when the coursework is to be completed.
• #14: This verification is something that the counties have requested, and will facilitate their hiring of LPCCs.
• #15: What else does the Scope not include? Due to a compromise with the California Psychological Association, in order to get the LPCC bill passed, LPCCs cannot administer the tests that are listed here, even if they have the education and training to do so.
• #17: This chart, with sentences taken from the Scopes of Practice, indicates that all three license types at the master’s level are licensed to provide psychotherapy in CA, but each license type has a different focus in its scope of practice and education. The top row of this chart indicates the purpose of the practice and the bottom row indicates how each license type achieves its purpose. I like to think of the bottom row as the common denominator and the top row as the numerator, where the differences are seen. LPCCs focus on the general practice of mental health counseling, and many develop a counseling specialty, such as rehabilitation, career, mental health, creative arts therapies, school counseling, marriage and family therapy, etc. LMFTs focus on marriage and family therapy and LCSWs focus on social work.
• #18: Advanced Counseling Psychotherapeutic Theories and Techniques is the 13th Core Area. The other 12 are presented in a chart on the following slide.
• #19: 3 semester-units (4.5 quarter-units) are required in each of the 13 Core Areas. Ten of the Core Areas must be included in the degree. Three of the Core Areas may be added post-degree, but the BBS is working on an amendment that would not allow Assessment or Diagnosis to be remediated post-degree. Out-of-state applicants are allowed to remediate 6 core courses, but they, too, will not be allowed to remediate Assessment or Diagnosis.
• #20: In addition to the 13 core areas, these 15 units allow LPCC students to develop an area of specialty or expertise. Many counselors then gain national certificates in one of these specialty areas.
• #21: The practicum must be included within the degree and cannot be remediated post-degree. The graduate programs have oversight of the pre-degree practicum hours. The 280 hours are the national standard.
• #22: The supervision requirement for the LPCC is 3,000 post degree hours Pre-degree practicum hours do not count toward the post-degree 3,000-hour requirement. This is the national standard and we have tried to make CA LPCCs as portable as possible to other states.
• #23: Two exams are required for the LPCC licensure…..PCCIs who do not pass the Law and Ethics Exam during their first year of internship must take a 12-hour course in CA Law & Ethics and retake the exam in the next renewal cycle. The last step to licensure is the NCMHCE ……
• #24: The LPCC is regulated by the BBS, which also regulated LMFTs, LSCWs and Licensed Educational Psychologists. LPCCs are currently represented by one LPCC. When there are more LPCCs, we will change the law to include two LPCC representatives on the BBS Board.
• #25: We invite students, faculty, interns and licensees to join CALPCC. Services include…… Current CALPCC Membership dues: Students/interns $30; Professionals $100, although there may be a slight increase in 2016. (CALPCC endorses HPSO Professional Liability Insurance. Students: $23, First year grads: $57, Employed Professionals: $111. Self-employed Professional rates vary, depending on full time vs part time. HPSO gives a 10% discount for CALPCC conference attendance. The next conference: April 16, 2016 at SJSU.) The Counselor Educators’ Consortia usually meets at the CALPCC conference and at other times a year upon request. The Consortia meetings usually include the LPCC representative to the BBS and a BBS staff member. The purpose of these meetings is to get answers to questions about the LPCC and to share common experiences.
• #26: This concludes our slide presentation. Please visit our website for further information about the license or to become a CALPCC member. Questions about the license can be submitted to <info@calpcc.org>.