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Ohio Laws and Rules
The requirements for licensure as a professional Counselor are generally set forth in sections 4757.22 and 4757.23 of the Revised Code.
(A) Pertaining to the educational requirements, a “graduate degree in counseling” means a degree that meets all of the following criteria:
(1) The degree and/or the official transcript of course work shall clearly indicate that the degree awarded is a degree in counseling. Graduate degrees in other human service areas such as psychology, social work and marriage and family therapy are not considered degrees in counseling.
(2) The program shall be clearly identified as a counseling program. Such a program shall specify in pertinent institutional catalogues and brochures its intent to educate and train professional counselors.
(3) The counseling program shall stand as a recognizable organizational entity within the institution and have a counseling faculty who identify with the counseling profession.
(4) The counseling program shall be an organized sequence of study that includes at least one graduate course in each of the following eleven areas of counselor training.
(a) Counseling theory: Includes a study of basic theories, principles of counseling and philosophical bases of the helping relationship;
(b) Counseling techniques: Includes individual counseling practices, methods, facilitative skills, and the application of these skills;
(c) Practicum: includes a supervised training experience, acceptable to the board, consisting of the provision of counseling to bona fide clients, and/or groups seeking services from counselors.
(i) A practicum consists no less than one hundred hours of which forty hours are direct service or conforms to current “Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs” “CACREP” or the “Council on Rehabilitation Education” ‘CORE” standards for the required number of practicum hours, if those standards exceed one hundred hours.
(ii) Students, who have not completed their master’s degree requirements prior to September 30, 1997, and have been enrolled in a practicum of less than one hundred hours prior to September 30, 1997, may use that course to fulfill the practicum requirement.
(d) Internship: Includes an on-the-job experience in professional counseling acceptable to the board.
(i) The supervised internship shall be no less than six hundred hours of which two hundred forty hours shall be in direct services, which include the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders and conditions.
(ii) Students who have not completed their master’s degree requirements by September, 30, 1997, who have begun an internship of less than six hundred hours prior to September 30, 1997, may use that internship experience to fulfill the internship requirement. Any internship begun after September 30, 1997, shall comply with the requirements in paragraph (A)(1)(d)(i) of this rule.
(iii) First time applicants who are intending to use the internship experience to meet the educational requirements of the board shall document their internship experience on a form prescribed by the board. The form shall be completed by the supervisor or supervisors and shall document the student’s competency in all areas designated on the form. The form shall be completed and submitted by the student within thirty days of the successful completion of the internship.
(e) Human growth and development: Includes studies that provide a broad understanding of the nature and needs of individuals at all developmental levels. Emphasis is placed on psychological, sociological, and physiological approaches, human behavior, (normal and abnormal), personality theory, and learning theory.
(f) Social and cultural foundations: Includes studies of change, ethnic groups, subcultures, changing roles of women, sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, urban and rural societies, population patterns, cultural mores, use of leisure time, and differing life patterns.
(g) Group dynamics, processing and counseling: includes the study of group dynamics, group processes, practices and methods of group counseling, supervised practice, supervised facilitative skills, and theory and types of groups.
(h) Life-style and career development: includes vocational-choice theory, relationship of career choice to life-style, sources of occupational and educational information, approaches to career decision-making processes, and career development exploration techniques.
(i) Appraisal of the individual through: testing includes the development of a framework for understanding the individual, methods of data-gathering and interpretation, case study approaches, individual and group psychological and educational testing and the study of individual differences with consideration of ethnic, cultural and gender factors.
(j) Research and evaluation: Includes statistics, research design, the development of research and demonstration proposals, as well as the development and evaluation of program objectives.
(k) Professional, legal, and ethical: includes the study of professional counseling organizations, codes of ethics, legal considerations, standards of preparation, certification and licensure including the Ohio licensure law, and the professional role identity of counselors.
(5) In addition, either as a part of the applicant’s master or doctoral degree or after the award of the degree, a minimum of thirty quarter hours, or twenty semester hours, of instruction acceptable to the board and represented by at least one graduate course in each of the following areas:
(a) Clinical psychopathology, personality, and abnormal behavior: includes the study of abnormal behavior, personality disorders, and psychopathological conditions specific to developmental phases through out the life span, and their application to counseling practice.
(b) Evaluation of mental and emotional status: includes the use of assessment procedures in diagnosis and treatment planning. Focuses on the administering and interpreting individual and group standardized tests of mental ability, and personality and measurement.
(c) Diagnosis of mental and emotional disorders: includes the appropriate use of the current edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders”, and an understanding of the “International Classification of Diseases”. Focuses on conducting mental status examinations, and on the development and recognition of a framework for identifying symptomology, etiology and psychodynamics of mental and emotional disorders.
(d) Methods of intervention and prevention of mental and emotional disorders: includes studies of the:
(i) Psychological and educational methods of intervention, such as client-centered, psychoanalytic, hypnotherapy, rational-emotive therapy, and reality therapy.
(ii) Culturally sensitive intervention techniques used with diverse populations such as minorities, children, substance abusers, gay and lesbian individuals and individuals who are physically or mentally challenged.
(iii) Intervention strategies used in different situations such as marriage and family problems, crisis situations, bereavement, sex therapy, rehabilitation, child abuse and multicultural counseling.
(e) Treatment of mental and emotional disorders: includes developing and implementing a treatment plan, reporting and assessing progress of treatment, appropriate referral procedures, formulation of timelines for treatment and knowing the effect on client behavior and the interaction of psychotropic medications and mood altering chemicals in the treatment of mental and emotional disorders.
(B) Applicants who are denied admission to the examination will be afforded an opportunity for a hearing pursuant to Chapter 119. of the Revised Code.
(C) Program requirements for counseling programs are defined in rule 4757-13-07 of the Administrative Code. Applicants from approved programs shall be considered to have met the educational requirements of this rule.
Replaces: 4757-13-01
Effective: 01/10/2008
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 09/20/2012
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 4757.10, 4757.23
Rule Amplifies: 4757.23
Prior Effective Dates: 3-7-97; 2-9-98; 7-10-00; 9-20-02
All applicants for licensure as a professional counselor shall:
(A) Meet the educational requirements as established in rule 4757-13-01 or 4757-13-06 of the Administrative Code.
(B) Successfully complete the licensure examination prescribed by the counselor professional standards committee. Applicants for the professional counselor examination shall have passed the required examination within two years of application date unless they are currently licensed in an equivalent capacity in another state and passed the prescribed examination as part of the licensure requirements in that state.
(C) Be of good moral character.
(D) Have met all of the initial application requirements established in rule 4757-1-04 of the Administrative Code.
Effective: 11/02/2008
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 09/20/2012
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 4757.10, 4757.22 & 4757.23
Rule Amplifies: 4757.22 & 4757.23
Prior Effective Dates: 7/3/97; 2/9/98, 9/20/07
(A) In addition to meeting educational and other requirements as established in rules 4757-13-01 and 4757-13-02 of the Administrative Code, applicants for professional clinical counselor shall meet the following experience and examination requirements as a professional counselor:
(1) An applicant with a qualifying master’s or other graduate degree which is not a doctorate in counseling shall have completed two years of post professional counselor licensure supervised experience in clinical counseling, which includes the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders which must be completed after all of the educational requirements have been met.
(2) An applicant with a doctorate in counseling shall have completed two years of supervised experience in clinical counseling, which includes the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders. At least one year and a minimum of fifteen hundred hours of supervised experience shall be completed after the award of the doctoral degree and one year and a maximum of fifteen hundred hours of supervised experience may be completed as a part of a doctoral internship at a board approved counselor education program.
(3) At least fifteen hundred hours of work by the applicants shall be in a clinical setting, which includes the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders. Each year of supervised experience in clinical counseling required under section 4757.22 of the Revised Code and under this rule shall meet paragraphs (A)(3)(a), (A)(3)(b) and (B) of this rule unless the committee approves experience under paragraph (A)(3)(c), (A)(3)(d), (A)(3)(e) or (A)(3)(f) of this rule.
(a) At least fifteen hundred hours of work, by the applicant, of which a minimum of fifty per cent of the work consists of face-to-face client contact involving the delivery of clinical counseling services, which include the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders. Not more than fifteen hundred hours of experience may be accrued in any twelve month period. If the supervised experience totaled less than the fifteen hundred hours, in a twelve month period credit will be granted for the fraction of a year’s experience represented by the number of hours worked; and
(b) The experience was under the direct supervision of a professional clinical counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, independent social worker with a clinical area of competence, or other independently licensed mental health professional acceptable to the counselor professional standards committee. All supervision obtained in Ohio shall be provided by a professional clinical counselor with supervision designation. Exceptions to this rule, due to hardship, shall be made in writing to the committee.
(c) Individuals may request consideration of post educational degree or post licensure supervised experience obtained prior to January 1, 1998, which may be accepted by the committee as meeting the supervised clinical experience requirements if it meets the following conditions:
(i) It was training supervision as defined in paragraph (A)(1) of rule 4757-17-01 of the Administrative Code;
(ii) The supervisee registered the experience with the board on a registration form provided by the board prior to the beginning of the supervised experience;
(iii) The experience qualified as clinical experience which included the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders and had been approved by the board prior to July 3, 1997; and
(iv) Applicants shall request consideration of the previously filed experience in writing from the committee.
(d) Supervised counseling experience obtained out of state may count toward the supervised experience requirement. Applicants shall request this consideration in writing from the counselor professional standards committee.
(e) Elementary or secondary schools and college or university academic advising, admissions, and placement centers are not clinical settings where diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders are routinely within the scope of practice. Applicants who believe that they are conducting diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders have the burden of proving to the counselor professional standards committee that their experience meets the requirements as defined in paragraphs (A)(3)(a) to (A)(3)(c) of this rule.
(f) Applicants licensed as licensed professional counselors may apply the supervised experience they completed to qualify for that license to satisfy the experience requirement for professional clinical counselor, if the experience meets all the standards set forth in this rule.
(B) An applicant for professional clinical counselor shall pass a field evaluation prescribed by the board to evaluate the applicant’s competence in diagnosing and treating mental and emotional disorders. The applicant shall further provide supervision evaluations within thirty days following the completion of the first fifteen hundred hours of supervised experience required under paragraph (A) of this rule, and again, at the completion of the full three thousand hours of supervised experience on forms provided by the board.
(1) The field evaluation shall contain documented evidence of the quality, scope and nature of the applicant’s field experience and competence in diagnosis and treating mental and emotional disorders and be submitted on a form prescribed by the counselor professional standards committee.
(2) The field evaluation shall be completed by the individuals registered with the board as the applicant’s supervising counselors.
(3) The supervision evaluations shall be completed by the registered supervising counselor for the applicant within thirty days of the accumulation of fifteen hundred and three thousand total hours of supervised experience. The applicant is responsible for providing the form to the supervisor.
(C) An applicant for professional clinical counselor shall successfully complete the licensure examination prescribed by the counselor professional standards committee within two years of application. All Ohio professional counselors who were licensed as professional counselors by taking the single tier Texas-Ohio examination from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2004 or Ohio professional counselor licensure examination from January 1, 2004 through February 28, 2006 are exempt from taking the prescribed examination for professional clinical counselor.
Effective: 09/20/2007
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 06/15/2007 and 09/20/2012
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 4757.10, 4757.22
Rule Amplifies: 4757.22
Prior Effective Dates: 2-24-86 (Emer.); 5-22-86; 12-18-88; 7-3-97; 2-9-98; 7-10-00; 3-13-06
Rescinded eff 11-02-08
(A) Applicants shall be approved prior to sitting for the examinations. When an applicant is approved they shall receive an admission letter from the board. This letter shall be presented to the testing site for admission to the examination. The letter shall be in effect for six months. If the examination is not taken within the time frame applicants shall need to request another admission letter.
(B) Applicants who fail the examination shall be required to wait ninety days to re-take the examination and a new admission letter shall be sent from the board.
(C) The counselor professional standards committee shall allow applicants for licensure as professional counselors and professional clinical counselors to sit for the examination three times.
(D) After the third attempt, if the applicant has not achieved a passing score, they shall not be allowed to re-take the examination until they have completed a total of nine semester hours or twelve quarter hours of graduate coursework or other approved remediation as approved by the board. A plan of correction shall be approved by the counselor professional standards committee prior to beginning the coursework.
Effective: 09/20/2007
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 06/15/2007 and 09/20/2012
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 4757.10
Rule Amplifies: 4757.15
Prior Effective Dates: 7-3-97; 9-20-02
(A) An applicant requesting licensure as a professional counselor or professional clinical counselor via endorsement shall submit to the board all of the following:
(1) A completed licensure application for the level of licensure for which the applicant is seeking licensure;
(2) The required fee established by the board under paragraph (B) of rule 4757-1-05 of the Administrative Code;
(3) An official statement, which indicates applicant is currently licensed, certified, registered, or otherwise authorized to practice as a professional counselor or professional clinical counselor in another jurisdiction;
(4) An official statement from any and all jurisdictions where the applicant is currently or has been previously licensed, certified, registered, or otherwise authorized to practice as a professional counselor or professional clinical counselor indicating whether the applicant is in good standing and whether disciplinary action has been taken or is pending against the applicant;
(5) All transcripts of undergraduate and graduate education, if any;
(6) If the applicant has taken another jurisdiction’s professional counselor or professional clinical counselor licensure exam, documentation of whether the applicant passed that exam;
(7) Any additional documentation requested by the board that would assist the board in making a determination based on paragraphs (B)(1) to (B)(8) of this rule.
(B) The counselor professional standards committee may consider the following factors to determine whether to grant the applicant a license via endorsement:
(1) Whether the applicant possesses a degree in counseling awarded by an appropriately accredited institution whose program is clearly identified as a counseling program that confers a counseling degree;
(2) Whether the applicant’s coursework is substantially similar to the requirements in paragraphs (A)(4) and (A)(5) of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code;
(3) Whether the hourly amount of the applicant’s degree coursework is substantially similar to the hours required in division (B)(3) of section 4757.23 of the Revised Code;
(4) Whether the applicant has passed a state professional counselor or professional clinical counselor licensure exam that is substantially similar to Ohio’s examination;
(5) Whether the applicant for professional clinical counselor has substantially equivalent supervised experience required by division (B)(4) of section 4757.22 of the Revised Code and paragraph (A)(2) and/or (A)(3) of rule 4757-13-03 of the Administrative Code;
(6) Whether the applicant’s license is currently in good standing in another jurisdiction and whether applicant has been disciplined in another jurisdiction;
(7) The number of years the applicant has practiced as a professional counselor or professional clinical counselor in another jurisdiction; and
Effective: 11/02/2008
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 09/20/2012
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 4757.10
Rule Amplifies: 4757.18
Prior Effective Dates: Eff 7-3-97; 7-10-00; 9-20-02; 1-10-08
(A) This rule establishes the requirements for an Ohio college or university counselor program seeking pre-approval that its program meets the requirements of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code. University or college counseling programs applying for pre-approval shall meet the following criteria.
(1) Programs that are council for accreditation of counseling and related programs, “CACREP”, accredited in community or mental health counseling shall submit course numbers and descriptions showing which courses meet the requirements of paragraphs (A)(4) and (A)(5) of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code; or
(2) Programs that are not “CACREP” accredited in community or mental health counseling shall provide a self-study documenting that they substantially meet all “CACREP” accreditation standards for community or mental health programs and all requirements of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code;
(B) Programs shall apply on forms provided by the board to document meeting the conditions specified in paragraph (A) of this rule and paragraph (A) of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code.
(1) Initial applications shall be approved for five years.
(2) Renewals shall be approved for five years and renewed each five years.
(3) Application forms shall require the following additional detail.
(a) Title of degrees offered;
(b) Sample transcripts that show degree titles and major;
(c) Copy of catalogs and brochures for the programs offered;
(d) Number of semester or quarter hours in their program for each degree listed;
(e) Listing of each course that meets the required coursework in paragraphs (A)(4) and (A)(5) of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code;
(f) Non “CACREP” accredited programs shall provide a self-study delineating how they substantially meet the “CACREP” standards for community or mental health counseling programs; and
(g) Other minor information required by the board approved form.
(4) Applicants from approved programs shall be considered to have met all requirements of paragraph (A) of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code.
(5) Applicants with graduate degrees in counseling from programs not approved by this board shall submit written evidence that their degree program and any additional coursework meet all the criteria for a graduate degree in counseling set forth in paragraph (A) of rule 4757-13-01 of the Administrative Code.
(6) Programs resident outside of Ohio are not eligible for pre-approval under this rule.
(C) Supervision of students shall meet the requirements established in “CACREP” accreditation standards for community or mental health counseling programs. Students registered as counselor trainees with the board shall further meet supervision requirements per rule 4757-17-01 of the Administrative Code.
Replaces: 4757-13-01(A)(3)
Effective: 01/10/2008
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 09/20/2012
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 4757.10, 4757.22, 4757.23
Rule Amplifies: 4757.22, 4757.23
Prior Effective Dates: 3-7-97; 2-9-98; 7-10-00; 9-20-02