I am in support of the petition for residents to receive verification from the Board within a 30-day time frame to approve their residency.  I currently hire LMFT residents in my private practice, but have encountered numerous difficulties with the Board in past several years.  Recently, it took the Board a year and a half to approve the supervision for one resident I supervise.  This resident is very deligent and turned in all of the paperwork for approval in a timely manner.  However, the Board continued to ask for additional clarification of documents and took long periods of time to respond once materials were sent.  For example, in one instance they asked for a information about the work place on the form that I filled out for the supervisee.  I filled out the information on the form about my practice, kinds of clients the resident would see, etc.  The Board, months later, then said the information wasn't accepted because it needed to be on letterhead (although it had said to put the information on the form).  I put the same information on letterheard, as they requested; however, it still was not accepted.  They then did not understand the definition of the workplace.  I had used this same detailed definition of my practice for other residents and it was always approved.  

I think providing a timely response to residents is crucial for them to be able to receive residency placements, in addtion to clear paperwork and definitions of what the Board needs to complete the packets and giving supervisors some type of notice (via e-mail or a website we can check) if regulations or requirements of supervison/placements change.  I want to continue to be able to hire residents in my practice, but I am very concerned I will not be able to do so in the future if these regulations do not change.  As a community of licensed professionals, I think it is vital that we band together to support  this petition and residents as they work hard to become licensed LMFT's in Virginia.