CACREP accreditation is voluntarily sought by education programs offering entry-level master’s degrees in counseling and/or doctoral degrees in counselor education and supervision. Programs that have completed the accreditation review process, whether for the first time as an initial accreditation review or as a re-accreditation review, can receive one of three basic decisions. These decisions then become the accreditation status of the program. The three categories of decisions are the following:

Accredited for an eight-year period: This status is granted to programs that, in the professional judgment of the CACREP Board of Directors, meet all standards in a satisfactory manner.

Accredited for a two-year period: This status is granted to programs that substantially meet the requirements for accredited status, but which need to address relatively minor standards-related deficiencies. The CACREP Board of Directors confers two-year accreditation to a program when there is a belief that the program can correct the deficiencies within the two-year period. Within the two-year period, the program is required to submit an Interim Report providing the requested information. Acceptance of the Interim Report will lead to accreditation for the remainder of the eight-year period accreditation period.

Denial of accreditation: The CACREP Board of Directors denies a decision to accredit when there is consensus among Board members that the program is not in substantial compliance with the standards.

In addition to making decisions in the above three listed categories, the CACREP Board may be requested to take action on requests made by programs currently accredited. These actions may occur in the following categories:

Voluntary Withdrawal of Accreditation Status – CACREP Accreditation Process Policy #1 allows programs to withdraw from any accreditation status at any time during the review process or during an accreditation cycle. Programs that choose to voluntarily withdraw must notify CACREP in writing of this decision. It should be noted that withdrawal is a voluntary action taken by the program.

Conversion – Programs currently accredited by CACREP as Community Counseling (CC) programs are eligible to convert their accreditation to Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) under CACREP Accreditation Maintenance Policy #8 – Converting a CACREP-accredited Community Counseling Program to a CACREP-accredited Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program. In accordance to the CACREP policy, the accreditation cycle end date is the original end date for the Community Counseling program. A full review of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program will occur when the program applies for re-accreditation towards the end of the current accreditation cycle.

Dual Accreditation as CMHC/CLRC – Programs that are accredited as Rehabilitation Counseling programs by the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE) can apply to have their programs evaluated by CACREP and CORE against both the Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) standards and the Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling (CLRC) Standards.