As a graduate student on track for licensure in clinical professional counseling in the state of Maryland who will actively seek to get licensure in Virginia (so I can work in the DMV), this proposal seeks to make the current mental health crisis much worse in the state of Virginia. There is no empirical evidence to support that graduates of CACREP-accredited institutions are more qualified or prepared for licensure in the state of Virginia than graduates from, say, MPCAP-accredited institutions.

With this proposal, the state of Virginia is severely restricting the number of counselors who may apply for licensure in the state of Virginia in the coming years. Why? There are only three CACREP-accredited clinical mental health counseling programs in the entire state of Maryland, none of which are in the DMV area. That means the graduates from Maryland clinical mental health counseling programs most likely to want to apply for licensure in the state of Virginia in the coming years would have to wait an entire decade to qualify.

How on earth could this be considered a solution for the current mental health crisis in the state of Virginia? Make access to licensure equitable for all qualified mental health professionals, and put this decades-long feud between the American Counseling Association (who, without evidence, insists their accrediting body is superior) and the American Psychological Association to rest.