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Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs

CHAIR'S MESSAGE

Martin Ritchie, CACREP Chair  

CACREP is the Mark of Excellence

For thirty years CACREP has been recognized as the mark of excellence in counselor education preparation. When CACREP was first established in 1981, it was officially endorsed by the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES). Even though CACREP was, and still is, a voluntary accreditation, it was viewed back then as the minimal national standards for training counselors; and programs that made the effort to earn CACREP-accreditation were recognized as excellent programs from the very beginning. A lot has happened in the past thirty years.

From a mere handful of CACREP-accredited programs in the beginning, the number of programs earning the mark of excellence has increased steadily over the past thirty years. As of January 2011 there were a total of 258 different institutions boasting a total of 604 CACREP-accredited programs, and the number grows every year. Currently there are CACREP-accredited programs in 47 states and in Washington, D.C., Canada, and Mexico. Clearly more and more programs recognize the advantages of earning the mark of excellence. And this recognition is very real.

CACREP is officially recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) also recognizes CACREP and accepts a reduced amount of evidence from school counseling programs involved in NCATE's unit accreditation process. The Institute of Medicine (IOM), an independent, nonprofit arm of the National Academy of Science that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public, recently recommended that CACREP accreditation as a Clinical Mental Health Counseling program be the recognized preparation for working within TRICARE. While the TRICARE legislation has not yet been formalized, the Veteran's Administration has already independently decided to recognize CACREP in its new hiring requirements for mental health counselors seeking employment within its system. This type of national recognition demonstrates the mark of excellence accorded to CACREP-accreditation, and it further elevates the recognition of the counseling profession.

Thirty years ago only a handful of states had passed counselor licensure but even back then educational requirements for licensure were modeled after the CACREP standards. Today all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have counselor licensure and CACREP is mentioned, by name, in 28 of those states' rules and regulations. In most of the jurisdictions that do not mention CACREP by name in their licensure laws, the CACREP standards still appear in the core curriculum, practicum and internship, and credit hour requirements. The mark of excellence is increasingly being seen as the minimal standard of preparation, the purpose that it was first intended to meet thirty years ago. The next thirty years will no doubt see many changes, challenges and advances to the counseling profession. There is no doubt that CACREP will continue to be recognized as the national training standards for counselors. It is no coincidence that the CACREP logo contains a check mark. It is for the mark of excellence that CACREP-accredited programs have earned.

Kind Regards,



Name Chair,
Chair, CACREP

SPRING 2011

 

IN THIS ISSUE...

Call for SRC

News/Events

Accreditation Decisions

New Board Members

Policy Updates

IRCEP News

 

JOIN Our Community

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CALL FOR SRC

Applications are now being accepted for membership on the 2016 Standards Revision Committee. Details and the application form can be found here.

 
 
 
 
News

CALL FOR SRC

Applications are now being accepted for membership on the 2016 Standards Revision Committee.  Details and the application form can be found at  http://www.cacrep.org/index.cfm/news_call-for-applications-for-the-2016-standards-revsision-committee

 

 
 
 
 
Events

Events at ACA

A PANEL DISCUSSION

Saturday, March 26, 2011
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

90-Minute Session
Samuel T. Gladding, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, Anita Engstrom Jones, Francis A. Martin, Adam Wall

The panelists will address their perceptions of the role of counselor professional identity in preparation programs read more >

 

PANEL DISCUSSION ON STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES IN COUNSELOR EDUCATION

Sunday, March 27, 2011
8:45 am - 10:15 am

90-Minute Session
Jeffrey Parsons, Verl Pope, Leila Roach

The purpose of this program is to bring together counselor educators that have already begun to incorporate student-learning outcomes and related assessment practices to discuss what they are doing and the challenges and successes they have encountered along the way.read more > 

 

Upcoming Workshops

CACREP will be hosting two "How to Write a CACREP Self-Study Workshops this April.
The April 11, 2011 workshop in Alexandria is full.
The April 15, 2011 workshop in Ashland, Oregon is still open. For details, please see the registration form here.
The next "How to Write a CACREP Self-study" Workshop will be held prior to the ACES National conference in Nashville in Fall 2011. Please stay tuned for date and time announcementents.  

 
 

ACCREDITATION DECISIONS

The CACREP Board of Directors met January 7-9, 2011, in Orlando, FL and rendered the accreditation decisions listed below. The next meeting of the Board of Directors is scheduled for July 2011. click  here.

 
 

NEW BOARD MEMBERS

On June 30, we bid farewell to two CACREP Board members, Donna Gooden Payne and Sue Strong. Sue is a faculty member in the Counseling and Educational Psychology Department at Eastern Kentucky University. Donna serves as a public member and in her "real job" is the University Attorney at East Carolina University. read more >

 
 
 
Policy

POLICY UPDATES

Standard I.P:

The program faculty conducts a systematic developmental assessment of each student's progress throughout the program. read more >

Multiple Sites Clarification

The Board of Directors continued its discussion of multiple campus site and the implications for review under the CACREP Standards. read more >

 
IRCEP

IRCEP UPDATES

The following CACREP Programs were added to the International Registry of Counsellor Education Programs (IRCEP) at the January 2011 CACREP Board meeting.
read more >

 
IRCEP

Obituary

On January 5, CACREP lost a former Board Member and the Counseling Profession lost a truly unique professional. Dr Thelma Vriend was a member of the CACREP Board from 1990 – 1996. She was also a Chi Sigma Iota Distinguished Scholar and Counselor Educator.