Healing arts: licensure requirements.

Existing law, the Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Act, provides for the licensure or registration and regulation of marriage and family therapists and interns by the Board of Behavioral Sciences. Existing law requires each applicant for licensure to complete a certain number of hours of experience prior to applying for licensure. Existing law provides that the provision only applies to hours of experience gained on and after January 1, 2010. Existing law also imposes, as part of the licensure prerequisites for marriage and family therapists, certain supervised-experience requirements whereby a prospective licensee is required to work a specified number of hours in a clinical setting under the supervision of experienced professionals. Existing law requires a trainee to receive at least one hour of direct supervisor contact for every 5 hours of client contact in each setting. Existing law requires an individual supervised after being granted a qualifying degree to receive at least one additional hour of direct supervisor contact for every week in which more than 10 hours of client contact is gained in each setting, provided however, that no more than 5 hours of supervision are credited during any single week. This bill would instead allow a trainee or an individual with a qualifying degree to be credited with no more than 6 hours of supervision during any single week for supervision hours gained on or after January 1, 2009. Existing law establishes certain criteria for the settings in which supervision hours may be credited to a trainee, including, among other things, a prohibition against settings that are private practices owned by a licensed marriage and family therapist, a licensed psychologist, a licensed clinical social worker, a licensed physician and surgeon, or a professional corporation of any of those licensed professions. The bill would also include a private practice owned by a licensed professional clinical counselor in the list of prohibited settings described above. Existing law, the Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of licensed professional clinical counselors by the Board of Behavioral Sciences. Existing law sets forth the number of hours of experience required for licensure, including supervised clinical mental health experience related to the practice of professional counseling. Existing law provides that no more than 5 hours of supervision may be credited during any single week. This bill would instead allow no more than 6 hours of supervision to be credited during any single week for supervision hours gained on or after January 1, 2009.