ACTION ALERT: 2016 CACREP Standards

ACTION ALERT The second draft of the 2016 CACREP Standards is now available to the public for comments Response deadline: January 10, 2014 As you know, what makes our association distinct among the other counseling organizations is the predominance of clinical practitioners among AMHCA's membership. Consequently, when CACREP addresses changes in the training standards for clinical mental health counselors, AMHCA, as an organization, offers a response. However, beyond the formal AMHCA organizational response, our members' and other stakeholders' individual opinions also carry significant weight and their voices need to be heard. After all, who better to offer an opinion about training standards than active clinical practitioners? AMHCA's CACREP Committee is asking that those AMHCA clinical mental health counselors and AMHCA members that hold faculty positions in clinical mental health programs, wishing to contribute to the development of the new CACREP training standards do so by January 10, 2014, the deadline set by CACREP. You'll find links to download the AMHCA CACREP Committee's detailed response below. We encourage you to use it as a guide when you respond. You'll note that the formal response offered by AMHCA's CACREP Committee was limited to the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Standards - Feedback Survey. Feel free to cut and paste any or all of the response offered by the AMHCA CACREP Committee, personalize the AMHCA response with examples from your clinical practice, or respond in your own words. What the AMHCA CACREP Committee feels is most important is that our members, with years of practical clinical experience, add their weight into this public comment opportunity. Again, who better to offer an opinion about training standards than active clinical practitioners? The process of submitting a contribution is relatively easy. You begin by going to CACREP's feedback website. As mentioned on their website, "CACREP suggests reading two documents in their entirety prior to beginning any feedback survey." The first document is A Guide to Reviewing Draft 2, which offers an overview of the major changes made to the Standards. The second is a copy of Draft 2 of the 2016 CACREP Standards. Preceding each survey you will be asked to provide some basic demographic information. Then, read the standard, or group of standards, and indicate in the text box provided if you believe the standard(s) should be revised. Note that each text box has a 500 word limit. Download AMHCA CACREP Committee Response - Word document Download AMHCA CACREP Committee Response - PDF If you have any questions about the feedback process or experience any technical problems on the CACREP website, please contact the CACREP office at cacrep@cacrep.org. If you have any questions about AMHCA organizational response, please contact the AMHCA CACREP Committee Chair, Keith Mobley at k_mobley@uncg.edu. Thank you for your membership and support of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, the ONLY organization working exclusively for the clinical mental health counseling profession. www.amhca.org Not a member? Join today!