05/26/2022
AASCB Webinar
Counselor Preparation: Accreditation and Distance Education
Target audience: Counseling licensure board members
Learning Objectives:
1. Understanding federal requirements and changes in higher education influencing programmatic accreditation
2. Identifying Standards and Policies relevant to digital delivery to include: clinical instruction design, student assessment, and faculty, student, and supervisor preparedness to function in the digital environment.
3. Implications for counseling practice regulation in the digital environment.
Relevance to Mission:
This topic focuses on AASCB’s mission of educating members (licensing board members) on the changes in federal requirements and in higher education impacting counselor preparation that has implications for fulfilling statutory, professional, and ethical obligations in regulation.
Presenter: M. Sylvia Fernandez, PhD
Dr. M. Sylvia Fernandez, CACREP President and CEO, was a counselor educator and administrator for 29 years prior to this role. Dr. Fernandez has extensive professional service and leadership experience in state, national, and international counseling professional organizations including as Arkansas President of ACA and ACES. She has served as Chair of: the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling, the Board of Directors of NBCC and NBCC-International, and the CACREP Board of Directors respectively. Dr. Fernandez's publications and presentations are in the areas of multicultural issues in counseling and related disciplines, counselor education and credentialing, professional identity and ethics, and clinical supervision.
Outline:
Federal requirements
- USDE changes in definition of distance education; financial aid; authentication of students;
- Every institution must inform students of their eligibility to be credentialled to practice in the state in which they live
Higher education changes
- Greater integration of technology in didactic & clinical instruction
- Widening market share beyond the state/region
Counselor education/preparation
- didactic and clinical requirements
∗faculty, student, & supervisor knowledge & skills to function in the digital environment
∗distance supervision
∗legal and ethical issues in providing telebehavioral health
Law
- The state in which licensed and state where client resides
Licensing board rules and regs
- Acceptance of digitally delivered academic and clinical preparation
CACREP response
- Digitally delivered program website
∗Glossary of Digital Learning Terms
∗Required reporting going forward
∗Guide programs in their reporting
With the accelerated boom in digitally delivered programs (synchronous, asynchronous, competency-based), how will licensing boards respond, particularly if you do not recognize:
- online (digitally delivered) courses and/or degrees? and
- distance/digital delivery of services and/or pre-licensure and post-degree supervision?
DE and Counselor Preparation Outline