I don’t discuss on this blog political matters very often. However, there is a very, very complicated matter known as CACREP accreditation. CACREP accreditation lets counseling graduate schools maintain and enforce a certain high-level uniform set of standards. An excellent thing.
The main problems with it are that CACREP-only regulations threaten to undermine other equally excellent methods of teaching and theories of counseling. These regulations also threaten to retroactively become a sort of certification in which only counselors who went to a CACREP school back in the day are eligible for licensing, paneling, job positions, and more. Exceptions and loopholes and grandfathering rules abound. Let’s just say that I do not believe that utilizing a CACREP-only standard helps the public at a time when more access to mental health is needed, not less. There is more to a quality veteran counselor than their original graduate school training, and even then CACREP is not proven superior.
Currently, the Virginia Board is taking comments through 7/1/15 about their proposed CACREP-only licensing regulations for Virginia. Please visit the following link to make your opposition known:
http://townhall.virginia.gov/L/comments.cfm?stageid=7071
For more about this issue please visit:
http://www.concernedcounselors.org/
