Accreditation, Certification, And The Counselor

In previous decades, counselors and other individuals who provided therapy were unregulated—meaning there were no laws requiring specialized training for counselors. Then, in 1981, the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) and the American Personnel and Guidance Association (a precursor to the ACA) cooperatively established the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) in order to set standards for counselor training.

Review the CACREP Understanding Accreditation: Types of Accreditation Web page, NBCC’s Web page on board certification versus licensure for clinical mental health counselors, and Kaplan and Kraus’s article, “Building Blocks to Portability: Culmination of the 20/20 Initiative.”

In your post, answer the following questions:

• What advantages will you experience by graduating from a CACREP-approved program?
• Would it be advantageous for you to pursue becoming a National Certified Counselor through the NBCC, in addition to obtaining your state-granted license? Why or why not?
• Is license portability an issue that may be important to you in the future? Explain your answer.

Support your ideas by citing key sources from this unit, using APA style.

Response Guidelines

Respond to a learner who has a different view than you regarding the advantages of counselor certification or the importance of license portability.

Learning Components

This activity will help you achieve the following learning components:

• Research professional organizations, including professional membership benefits, activities, services to members, and current issues.
• Use the Internet to identify professional organizations relevant to the practice of mental health counseling in a specialty area.