I am requesting that the Board of Counseling amend the regulations for LPC and LMFT supervisors to require that at least 2 hours of the 20 hours of continuing education required yearly for licensure renewal to be on the current LPC/LMFT regulations specifically on residency and supervision requirements and the related supervisory ethical issues.  This would not change the current requirement of having a total of 20 hours of CEs yearly, of which 2 hours currently are to be on any ethics topics.  This would only be for supervisors to have 2 hours specifically on supervision regulations and ethics.

The reason I submitted this petition is because, over the past few years, I have become aware of multiple instances of supervisors supervising inappropriately (not following the regulations) or unethically.  It's not clear that this is volitional or due to ignorance of the regulations.  Some examples are: supervision "prep" hours (preparing case studies) in advance of in-person supervision being counted as face-to-face supervision hours; dyad supervision being counted as individual supervision; immediately "firing" a resident as retribution for the resident giving the required 30 or 60 days' notice of leaving their practice (which did not allow for appropriate termination with their clients); supervisors making negative comments to clients about the resident who resigned; supervisors writing negative/inaccurate information on the verification of supervision form as retribution; the supervisor using their resident as a confidant in dealing with their own personal issues; supervisors requiring their resident to have and pay for supervision they're unable to count (i.e. when the resident does not have enough indirect & direct hours to justify the supervision); supervisors not providing enough supervision (or not suggesting outside additional supervision) to cover their resident's hours, leaving the resident with needing more supervision hours even after completing their total (direct + indirect) work hours resulting in unnecessarily prolonging their residency and postponing their licensure.

My petition is specifically only for supervisors and is specifically for 2 CEs reviewing the Virginia regulation requirements for supervisors and residents and any specific ethical issues regarding the supervisory process.  I understand this would only be for those supervisors who, for whatever reason, have not kept up with the changes in the regulations or who may simply be functioning based on what they “think” are the regulations without checking for any updates.  I understand this will not address some of the issues I listed above for supervisors who are acting out of retribution or volitionally ignoring the regulations.