I am writing in opposition to the proposed regulations.

CACREP has not been proven to be a superior standard to other training certifications - not to mention that professional counselors in any case continue to obtain training and experience long after graduate school.

CACREP is mainly a political story - an attempt to lock-up the counseling and education market by a subset of educators and institutions.

Virginia should instead have a neutral and rigorous standard which can potentially be met by a variety of training institutions and curriculum certifications.  There is no reason for Virginia to hand over its quality standards to an outside non-profit.

With the arbitrary selection of CACREP-only, the people of Virginia lose access to often rare mental health help. Non-CACREP Counselors too suffer an unwarranted damage of public trust in their credentials and possible discrimination in hiring.

Please oppose and veto these regulatory changes.