To: Jaime Hoyle, Executive Director

9960 Maryland Drive
Suite 300
Richmond, VA 23233

The Virginia Counselors Association (VCA) was founded in 1930 and we exist to promote the counseling profession by supporting, empowering, and advocating for the diverse needs of all counselors in Virginia. We currently serve approximately 1,180 members, with many non-members benefiting from our professional development workshops, annual Convention, and trainings. I share this with you and the board to emphasize how dynamic, diverse, and established VCA’s presence is within our profession and the leadership we cultivate across educational institutions. So, while VCA ultimately functions to serve counselors, it stands to reason that VCA’s work in serving its members has important impacts on clients and communities.

With our members and communities in mind, the Virginia Counselors Association is opposed to the petition of requesting endorsement of the National Counselor Licensure for Endorsement Process (NCELP). The American Counseling Association’s license portability model, proposed in June 2016, is a viable alternative to NCELP. As a whole, VCA believes that the NCELP model as it is currently stated is too restrictive and does not address the needs of all counselors, as VCA’s mission states.

NCLEP being too restrictive would place undo harm to Virginia residents who are in desperate need of mental health services by making it more difficult for counselors to reach them. Please refer to the Mental Heath Professional Shortage Areas map through the Virginia Department of Health via this web link: http://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=396305561131435391009fc9b4392ddd. As you can see, the health equity in Virginia, specifically related to mental health access needs improvement by ways of regulations that are more inclusive and consider the systems in which mental health care is needed.

As current President of VCA, I have the privilege of speaking with counselors from diverse backgrounds across our beautiful state. I have never met a counselor who did not desire license portability or did not know the benefits of portability for the communities they serve. From this perspective, this petition brought forth by Virginia’s Board of Counseling is not a question of if one is for or against portability—it is about how to get there. Furthermore, as a native Virginian who graduated from schools in Virginia and works in Virginia—I can speak to a personal pride I have from being a counselor in Virginia. The Board of Counseling has always trail blazed a path for our profession, which is why I feel a greater sense of responsibility as VCA President to voice the opinions of VCA leaders who are concerned about the NCELP model.

In sum, VCA requests that the Board of Counseling strongly consider ACA’s portability model as an inclusive, equitable, and adoptable option to license portability, instead of the NCELP model.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our concerns and thoughts regarding this issue. We, at VCA, are deeply appreciative for all that you do to strengthen and secure our professional identity as counselors in our state. Thank  you for your thoughtful consideration in our request.

Respectfully submitted,

Monica P. Band, Ed.D., CRC, NCC
Resident in Counseling
President of the Virginia Counselors Association 2018-2019