The CACREP Connection

Welcome back to the CACREP Connection newsletter. We missed you!

The CACREP Connection is a bi-annual newsletter with timely information and relevant articles.

Don't forget to stay up to date with all things CACREP on our website.

Message from Earl Grey, CACREP Board of Directors Chair

Hello CACREP Community,

In my tenure as the Chair of the CACREP Board of Directors during the 2023-2024 academic year we have three priorities: operationalizing the 2024 CACREP Standards, elevating the professional counseling voices on DEI expectations through this operationalization, and increasing CACREP’s structural and procedural transparency. As CACREP is a conduit for professional counselors’ voices, our goal in these three priorities is to clarify myths about CACREP, while elevating the themes that came from professional counselor voices through the standards revision process. The 2024 CACREP Standards memorialize the qualitatively assessed themes of more than 10,000 comments for our professional counseling community. We look forward to respectfully engaging with our professional counseling community over the 2023-2024 Academic Year.

-- Earl Grey

Public Notice of Accreditation Decisions: July 2023

The Board met on July 6-8, 2023 and made the following July 2023 Accreditation decisions. Click here to see the decisions.

Highlighting Innovative Practices

CACREP wants to highlight Counselor Education programs that are doing innovative and successful activities. Readers may find information they can use at their own programs. Contact cacrep@cacrep.org if you would like to highlight your program.

Bilingual and Bicultural Training: The Ánimo Latinx Counseling Emphasis

By: Olga L. Mejía, PhD

A well-known challenge for counselor trainees is seeing clients for the first time, a process that comes with significant anxiety, stress, and doubts. What happens when trainees now have to conduct counseling in a non-dominant language, their supervisors are not bilingual, and they do not have access to translated clinical documents? Additionally, the trainee may be asked to answer the front office phone and to translate for other clinicians, all while being uncompensated for this work. This is a scenario that takes place all too often for bilingual (in Spanish and English) and bicultural trainees (Verdinelli & Biever, 2009b). I developed the Ánimo Latinx Counseling Emphasis (hereafter called Ánimo) to address this scenario and better prepare bilingual and bicultural trainees to provide linguistically appropriate and culturally responsive mental health services to the Latinx community. Currently, there is a critical shortage of bilingual and bicultural mental health counselor to meet the needs of the Latinx community in the U.S. and Ánimo aims to address this shortage.

Want to continue reading? Click here to read the full article.

Interested in entering the 2023-2024 CACREP and CSI co-sponsored Leadership Essay Contest?

For this year’s Leadership Essay Contest, participants are invited to respond to the following prompt:

"As you consider CSI and CACREP's commitment to empowering diverse individuals and groups, what is the role of our Professional Counselor Identity in protecting and promoting the integrity of our inclusive counseling profession?"

For more information on this year’s Leadership Essay Contest and prize money click here. Submission deadline is Wednesday, November 15, 2023, at 5:00 PM EST. We can’t wait to read your submissions!

The Revitalization of IRCEP

Over the past two years, CACREP developed a strategic direction for the International Registry of Counsellor Education Programs (IRCEP). Last year an IRCEP Advisory Council was appointed to move forward on IRCEP’s vision to provide global support for the professionalization of counseling and quality assurance in counselor education and its mission to establish and maintain quality assurance standards in counseling education programs globally. To support this Council and to lead the implementation of its directives, CACREP is pleased to have hired Dr. Silvia Reyes as a full-time International Registry of Counsellor Education Programs Managing Director.

Meet Silvia Reyes

About: Silvia Reyes was born in Ecuador, lived in New York and Miami, Florida. She is NY die-hard Yankee fan who enjoys making the most of every day. She loves hanging orchids as it reminds her of her mother’s garden. She best describes herself as a friendly, team player, and welcomes challenges. She looks forward to creating an inclusive environment that allows her and the team to thrive.

Work Experience: Silvia holds a license as a mental health counselor and marriage and family therapist and has counseling experience working with children and adults who have experienced trauma and individual that also struggle with addiction. She has served both the counseling profession and local communities, through counselor education and supervision, mentorship, and grant writing. Through Silvia’s community work and grant writing, youth in grades 6-12 who are educationally and economically disadvantaged were provided with resources such as mental health counseling, college and career readiness counseling, psychoeducational assessments, mentorship, leadership, culturally diverse activities, as well as parent and family strengthening sessions. Silvia’s experience as counselor educator and clinical supervisor will be invaluable to carry out IRCEP’s mission to further develop and promote excellence in counselor education and training worldwide.

Fun Fact: Silvia holds a black belt in Chinese Kenpo Karate. She enjoys spending time with family (husband, son, nieces, nephews, and dad), friends and her rescue fur baby 'Candi.' Silvia enjoys going to the beach and watching sunsets with family and friends and taking hiking trails with 'Candi.' She looks forward to attending concerts with her most recent one ‘Sting.’ She listens to a varied genre of music (soft rock, reggae, Latin etc.) but favorite is listening to Elvis Presley. Silvia loves traveling-one of her favorite places was Sardinia Italy. If Silvia were to choose, her last meal would be linguini with clams and chilled glass of white wine.

Aspirations: Silvia looks forward to joining the team and making an impact at CACREP by meeting goals and helping to advance the mission of CACREP and IRCEP through her work.

CACREP at ACES National Conference

CACREP will be attending ACES National Conference in Denver. Click below to view all CACREP events from October 12-13.

CACREP Table Talk on Thursday, October 12, 2023

3:00pm- 4:00pm

Learn More

CACREP 2024 Standards Session on Thursday, October 12, 2023

5:00pm- 6:00pm

Learn More

NBCC- CACREP Reception on Thursday, October 12, 2023

7:00pm- 9:00pm

Learn More

ACES Town Hall and Awards Ceremony on Friday, October 13, 2023

9:30am- 10:30am

Learn More

Medicare Changes Coming

Following Congressional action, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed procedures in July 2023 to allow Marriage and Family Therapists and Mental Health Counselors (including Addiction Counselors who meet all the requirements to be a Mental Health Counselor) to enroll as Medicare providers. This means that the more than 400,000 Marriage and Family Therapists and Mental Health Counselors would now be able to independently treat people with Medicare and be paid directly.

Although the final rules will not be released until November, it is likely that the final version will be very similar to the proposal. The rules will go into effect January 1, 2024. They CMS has released a Q&A Document with information for LPCs and MFTs.

Public Board Member Opening

CACREP is seeking a Public Board Member beginning July 1, 2024. A public member serves on the CACREP Board to represent the public, and the consumers of counseling services provided by CACREP graduates. They cannot be a member of the counseling profession or a faculty/staff member at an institution with CACREP-accredited programs. If you know of an individual who has an interest in counseling or accreditation, and would be a good fit for the CACREP Board, please consider asking them to send in an application. Click here for the application.