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March
16, 2007
It has been a while since I have written our membership as I know that you
are all very busy both personally and professionally. I hope that this
email finds you each happy, healthy, and successful in those means and ways
which are important to you.
As the Maryland General Assembly comes together for the 423rd session, the
LCPCM needs to call upon our membership to help us with the legislative
efforts which are important to the LCPCM, the LCPCM members, and all LCPCs
within the State of Maryland. In particular, the LCPCM, in conjunction
with AAMFT-MAD, has submitted legislation which will require all of our
efforts and support to pass. LEGISLATIVE SYNOPSIS
I am writing you to let you know that we are continuing to work toward a
resolution to the legislative lock-up which we have experienced since the
inception of our license in 1998 when professional counselors advanced from
certified to licensed practitioners. To briefly summarize: In 1998, as a creative response to the efforts of psychologists
to restrict the licensure of professional counselors and therapists, and at
the request of the psychologists, the General Assembly mandated that the
Counseling Board and the Psychology Board jointly promulgate
competency standards for professional counselors and therapists who conduct
specialized psychological tests as part of their practice. Without
this agreement, the LCPC license would not have come into existence in 1998
and might have failed altogether. Unfortunately, and despite efforts
and hard work of the LCPCM, our Board, and many psychologists who have
worked together with us in our behalf, the Board of Professional
Counselors & Therapists and The Board of Examiners of Psychologists have
been unable to agree upon competency standards for professional counselors
and therapists who wish to conduct specialized psychological testing as a
part of their practice (at least, to date).
As a result of this failure to agree on standards, the resultant legislative
lock-up, and the limitations the lock-up places on our professional practice,
the LCPCM has put forward legislation which seeks to strike from the
legislation the language which "couples" the Board of Professional
Counselors & Therapists and Board of Examiners of Psychologists, and
requires their joint agreement, on the matter of establishing competency
standards for professional counselors and therapists who wish to conduct
specialized psychological test as a part of their practice. The LCPCM
maintains the position that the Board of Professional Counselors &
Therapists was created to serve as an autonomous and independent entity whose
purpose is "to protect the public by setting standards for the practice
of professional counseling" through the examination, licensure,
certification, regulation, and discipline of professional counselors,
marriage and family therapists, and alcohol and drug counselors within the
State of Maryland," which the LCPCM believes should include the ability
to establish and enforce educational and training standards for professional
counselors and therapists who wish to conduct specialized psychological
testing as a part of their practice.
The LCPCM believes that it is important for our members to
know that the Board of Professional Counselors & Therapists and the
Board of Examiners of Psychologists have appointed special subcommittees
to work together in an effort to develop and establish educational and
training competency standards for professional counselors and therapists
who wish to conduct specialized psychological testing as a part of their
practice. The LCPCM remains supportive of our Board's efforts and work
in this regard. Nevertheless, LCPCM has elected to move forward with
our own legislative efforts to decouple the Boards given the long history of
last minute conflicts which have to date resulted in the inability of the
Boards to reach agreement in regard to the matter at hand. In the event
the Boards were to come to an agreement, LCPCM would be supportive of the
decisions of our Board. CURRENT SITUATION
In 2007, the LCPCM has been joined by the Mid-Atlantic Division of the
American Association of Marriage & Family Therapists (AAMFT-MAD) in
our legislative efforts. The LCPCM, together with the AAMFT-MAD, has
submitted a bill similar to the bill the LCPCM submitted in 2006 which was
filed by our long-time champion Delegate James Hubbard (District 23A) on the
House Side. In 2007, Delegate James Hubbard has agreed to sponsor our
bill on in the House (HB-1098) and Senator Joan Carter-Conway (SB-866, which has been cross filed
with HB-1098). In brief, LCPCM
legislation submitted by LCPCM and AAMFT-MAD embodied in HB-1098 & SB-866 seeks to: "Decouple"
the Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists ("Counseling
Board") and the Board of Psychologists ("Psychology Board") Allow the
Counseling Board to regulate appraisal activities as they would any other
area of professional activity under the Board's authority. The LCPCM appreciates that our membership are
professional mental health practitioners who are busy serving the needs
of their clients. With this in mind, LCPCM requested our lobbyist draft
a brief synopsis in the form of a single page paper which outlines what we
might call the "talking points" for our membership (see Attachment
"Talking Points (LCPCM 2007 Testing Bill)" which is Adobe Acrobat
(PDF) file format). WHAT LCPCM NEEDS FROM OUR MEMBERSHIP - CRITICALLY IMPORTANT
What does the LCPCM need from our membership? We need you, our members,
to invest a little time and make some effort to contact specific members in
the Maryland General Assembly. While it is always helpful for our
members to contact the delegates and senator from their own district, LCPCM
believes that it is even more critical to focus our efforts on contacting the
members of the specific subcommittees who will be considering our
bills. Given the nature of our bill, LCPCM is certain that the
respective bills will be assigned to the House of Delegate's Health
& Government Operations Committee (Chair: Peter Hammen) and the
Senate's Education, Health, & Environmental Affairs Committee (Chair:
Joan Carter Conway). Although the bills have not been assigned to
specific subcommittees at this time, the Health Facilities & Occupations
Subcommittee (House) and the Health Subcommittee (Senate) are the
subcommittees likely to be assigned to our bill.
Although our grassroots efforts should focus on the committees as a whole, we
will want to focus our attention and initial efforts on the subcommittee
chairs and members as an unfavorable vote from the subcommittee will
negatively effect our chances at success before the full committee. In
an effort to help streamline your efforts and make the most efficient use of
your time, LCPCM wants to provide you with time saving links to the
committees, subcommittees, and more importantly their chairpersons and
members (including their email addresses, phone numbers, and physical
addresses). House of Delegates - Maryland State (LCPC&T Bill: HB-1098) Health & Government Operations Committee
(Chairperson - Peter Hammen & Vice-Chairperson: Marilyn R. Goldwater) Health Facilities & Occupations Subcommittee
(Chairperson & 8 Members) Chairperson - John P. Donoghue Subcommittee Members - Eric M. Bromwell, Donald B. Elliott, A. Wade Kach, Patrick L. McDonough, Heather R. Mizeur, Shane E. Pendergrass, B. Daniel Riley, & Veronica L. Turner Senate - Maryland State (LCPC&T Bill: SB-866) Education, Health, & Environmental Affairs Committee
(Chairperson - Joan Carter Conway &
Vice-Chairperson: Roy P. Dyson) Health Subcommittee (Chairperson,
Vice-Chairperson, & Members) Chairperson - Joan Carter Conway & Vice-Chairperson
- Roy P. Dyson Subcommittee Members - Gwendolyn T. Britt, Andrew P. Harris, & James C. Rosapepe
What does the LCPCM need from our members? We need you to take action
now! We need you to call, email, and fax letters to the delegates
and senators listed above. We remembered what our members asked of us
at the last conference - make it easy for members to lend their support to
the cause. You asked us to deliver and we have.
First and foremost, I hope that you will notice that the legislative alert
will allow you to click on the name of the delegates and senators and be
taken to their individual websites which provide you with a great deal of
valuable information on each member including their address, email address,
as well as their fax and phone numbers. Second, LCPCM's Lobbyist have
provided a wonderful single-page document entitled "Talking Points"
which gives a bulleted summary of the information to help walk you through
the points to cover during a phone conversation or when leaving a
message on a phone service. Finally, the LCPCM has included
pre-written letters which our members can use in cut-and-paste style to
quickly create their own letters which can be faxed and emailed to their
delegates and senators (sadly, regular postal delivery is unlikely to
reach them in time). The LCPCM designed these letters to be easy
to use with a minimum of effort - simply, add the date and the
delegate/senator's name at the top and at the bottom include your name, your
address, and your phone number. It is that easy!
What else can you do? I encourage you to talk to your
colleagues who are LCPC/LGPCs, LCMFT/LGMFTs, or LCADC/LGADCs (even those who
are not LCPCM members) and graduate students who are studying to become counselors.
It would be wonderful to get them to call, email, and/or fax. We need
your help now and time is critical. HB-1098 and SB-866 will be going
before the respective subcommittees next week (Tuesday, March 20 at 1:00pm
& Wednesday, March 21 at 1:00pm, respectively). It is critical to
act now!
I wanted to leave you with this thought: "In 1998, the General Assembly
made one comment about our efforts to win licensure for ourselves which
was that it was impossible to ignore us as members received several phone
calls a day urging their support." We need your help. Now is
the time. Please do not put this off... take a moment of your time
today to call, email, and/or fax.
Thank-you, in advance, for your time and effort in this regard. Michael
D. Cardaci, M.A. LCPCM
President-Elect & Legislative
Chairperson Post-Script:
This LCPCM Legislative Alert will be posted on our website as well (www.lcpcm.org) along with the attached
letters. While LCPCM & AAMFT-MAD are championing these bills, I
hope that you will bear in mind that these issues will impact every single
professional licensed by the Board of Professional Counselors &
Therapists in the State of Maryland. If you have questions, please feel
free to contact me. Please email me to let me know what action you have
taken as well. ~MDC~ |
