As a current Resident in Counseling working in an inpatient psychiatric hospital, I work with hundreds of patients in crisis everyday. When our patients get discharged, they are in need of accessible and high quality mental health care within the communtiy. Removing access to qualified providers with years of training who have already been accepted into residency for licensure would remove access to care for so many of our patients leaving the hospital. These patients would be more likely to relapse in their mental illness and would then readmit to the hospital or worse, bumping up health care costs and posting greater damages to our society.

Furthermore, this change would be a barrier to licensure and prevent residents from receiving some of the most relevant and educational training opportunities available for licensure. Such a loss would contribute to the critical gap in services so needed to meet the high demand for mental health care in our region.

DO NOT approve the proposed changes to provider qualifications for psychiatric services as outlined in Chapter II, pages 15-16 to eliminate the ability of residents in counseling and supervisees in social work to see clients in outpatient counseling settings.