Are you a California student or associate on the path to licensure as a Professional Clinical Counselor?
If so, Resonant Equity is your resource! We know how challenging it can be to jump through all the hoops that the California Board of Behavioral Sciences put up. We offer accurate licensure information to become an LPCC in California — hours needed in practicum and post-grad, supervision requirements, sites you can work at, which forms are required — plus, free training programs to meet many of the content requirements that the BBS requires!
We have expertise in mentoring out of state students, associates, and even mental health counseling programs on what is needed to ensure the California LPCC licensure process as smoothly as possible – and our BBS-required training programs will actually help you to learn practical clinical, legal, and ethical skills to be a competent counselor.
Free Mentoring for California Licensure – Pre-Licensed
Are you a pre-licensed clinician in California who is struggling with the process? The BBS rules are so confusing – especially if you’re moving from another state or you went to an out-of state school. Please reach out, we offer FREE mentoring opportunities for folks in this position!
A more formal mentoring program will be launched soon, including an application review service to give you a sanity check on whether you have everything needed, before you send over to the BBS. For now, one-off mentoring is available to help you with your questions and guide you in creating your strategy to get licensed. Please contact us and give us some details on where you’re at in your process and what your needs are right now. We’ll schedule a Zoom call to give you guidance and next steps. This service is free for pre-licensed students, trainees, and associates seeking licensure in California, who have never been licensed in any other state, though of course donations are welcome if you’re in a position to contribute to our non-profit (though not expected at all!).
Coaching for California Licensure – Already Licensed
Licensed in another state and want to get licensed in California? Maybe you’re planning a big move, or you have connections in California and you want to add another license to your set of professional credentials. Resonant Equity offers donation-based coaching services for any licensed practitioner in another state who wants guidance through the process of getting established with a license to practice in California. California has no plans at the moment to join the Counseling Compact, however they do have a variety of other options available for out-of-state clinicians to still work with California clients. We can help you get set up correctly with the California BBS. Don’t risk your license by doing telehealth with any client located in California without the proper approvals, it’s not worth it!
If you’re interested in this coaching service as an already-licensed clinician, please consider making a donation to us first, and then reach out to Resonant Equity to share your situation and what you’re looking for. We can set up a Zoom call to go over things together and guide you through what’s needed based on your scenario.
Licensed Clinicians: Please use Resonant Equity to earn your CEs!
Licensed clinicians are also invited to go through any of our licensing pre-req courses for a refresher of the basics and to fill in gaps in your knowledge! These courses are available for reasonable rates as CE earning opportunities to licensed clinicians from any state. We also offer the specific requirements that the California BBS requires for those who are already licensed, including:
- Assessment and Treatment of People Living with HIV/AIDS – 7 CE hours
- Suicide Prevention – 6 CE hours
- Telehealth Law & Ethics – 3 CE hours
And we have many other equity-focused counseling and mental health clinician continuing ed trainings. Purchasing Resonant Equity trainings supports our mission. We are very grateful to have you engage with our CE opportunities!
Free and Low-Cost Training to Pre-Licensed California Counselors
Resonant Equity’s mission is to promote diversity in mental health, and one way we will be doing that is by providing low and no cost training on the core content required by the California BBS, especially the requirements for those who attended an out-of-state program, including:
- California Law & Ethics – 12 hour course
- Human Sexuality – 10 hour course
- Spousal/Partner Abuse Assessment, Detection and Intervention – 15 hour course
- Child Abuse Assessment and Reporting in California – 7 hour course
- Aging, Long Term Care, and Elder/Dependent Adult Abuse – 10 hour course
- Mental Health Recovery Oriented Care and Methods of Service Delivery – 45 hour course
- California Cultures and the Social and Psychological Implications of Socioeconomic Position – 15 hour course
- Provision of Mental Health Services via Telehealth – 3 hour course
- Suicide Risk Assessment and Intervention – 6 hour course
(These programs are not yet available, we’re working on it though!) All of the courses will have equity issues front and center.
We stay on top of the requirements from the BBS and will help you navigate new ones that come out.
(Note: Resonant Equity will not offer test prep content for any state or national licensing exam. This is because our partners have served as subject matter experts in the test development process of the exam providers. All of the training content offered by Resonant Equity covers clinical training needs only.)
Where we’re headed: We want pre-licensed counselors to get PAID!
Resonant Equity wants to change the culture and norms of this profession that devalue the work of trainees and associates. Early career counselors work hard to help their clients, why don’t they get paid for it?! Many will object that the economics of mental health do not support it, but how are we going to get more clinicians with a wider range of lived experience without supporting everyone, regardless of how much privilege and resources they have, on their journey to becoming competent counselors?
The state of California has many obstacles to this, including the requirement that pre-licensed clinicians can only work as W-2 employees and not be independent contractors, plus the restrictions on where trainees may earn hours during internship and practicum, before they graduate. The logic is to protect the public, but the reality is that it limits opportunity for new clinicians and creates more inequities. Resonant Equity hopes to influence the way the legislation is written at the state level while also working within the system to make new types of training opportunities available.
Not only is it an issue of basic fairness, that labor be compensated, but it can also offer a pathway to supporting mental health clinicians in qualifying for federal loan forgiveness! The U.S. government offers programs to encourage work in nonprofit and social service settings. By structuring clinical training as employment, instead of volunteer placements, this could make trainees who are in student loan repayment eligible to have those payment months count towards the requirements. These programs are complicated, and Resonant Equity intends to provide education and support for both clinicians who want to take advantage of public service student loan forgiveness programs and also agencies who want to set this up.
Resonant Equity has its sights set on creating new models for clinical training that allow for the trainees to earn compensation and take full advantage of possible benefits available.