Dear Legislator,

I am a licensed psychologist, educator, and supervisor working in an institution of higher education and I have trained and supervised students at Master's and Doctoral levels in clinical, counseling psychology, and school psychology for over 25 years.

I urge you to oppose the current regulations that restrict counseling residents’ supervisors to people who hold an active Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) or Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) license.  Licensed psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists all have sufficient preparation to provide such supervision.  CACREP's restrictions on supervision limits mental health professionals' abilities to provide supervision to counseling trainees across a wide range of settings.   These restrictions will diminish the availability of vital and valuable mental, emotional, and  behavioral health services across multiple service settings and most particularly restrict and unnecessarily limit graduate training programs in their ability to train and supervise students in CACREP programs. 

Please do not be fooled by CACREP's assertions that counseling licensure should to be restricted to CACREP programs.  This is a market ploy to limit competition and force graduate training programs to hire CACREP graduates. Certainly, hiring decisions should be based on who is most qualified and not on who is in the club.

Please think about your constituents and their mental, emotional, and behavioral health needs and consider the impact of maintaining the CACREP restrictions or further narrowing the type of providers eligible for licensure along with those who are designated as "qualified" to supervise counseling residents and trainees.

Sincerely,

Heidi A. Zetzer, Ph.D.