California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed Assembly Bill 1759, making a couple of key changes in continuing education (CE) requirements for California MFTs, clinical counselors, and clinical social workers. There’s a new one-time Telehealth CE requirement for everyone, and a new annual Law and Ethics CE requirement for Associates.
Professional Counseling
California AB1758 signed, making video supervision legal across work settings through 2025
The bill was tagged as urgency legislation, meaning it took effect immediately upon the Governor’s signature. In addition to making video supervision legal across all work settings, it also newly requires supervisors (in all work settings, not just private practice) to assess a supervisee’s appropriateness for video supervision. I’ve created a form for that, modeled after the specific requirements in the bill. It’s available on my Resources page at the Ben Caldwell Labs site.
Kaiser to therapists on strike: We’re not abandoning patients, you are
On Tuesday, mental health clinicians for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California went on strike. While Kaiser and the union representing the therapists appear to have reached agreement on wages, the sides remain in dispute on issues related to staffing, working conditions, and client access to care. Kaiser reps have responded by calling the strike itself “unethical.” They have said that union leaders were asking therapists to “walk away from people who need help.” Suggesting that your own employees are unethical when they are striking to force Kaiser to improve patient access to mental health care is, as they say, a choice. It’s one that would seem destined to only worsen Kaiser’s ability to recruit and retain therapists in the future.
NASW files FTC complaint over CareDash profiles funneling clients to BetterHelp [updated]
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) informed its members last week that CareDash, which operates a health care provider directory, is engaging in what “appears to be an improper deceptive practice.” NASW says that CareDash’s process of using clinician listings to direct prospective clients to online therapy platform BetterHelp rather than to the listed clinicians “potentially violates federal and/or state consumer protection laws.”
Despite what a reasonable consumer would expect, you cannot, in fact, check my availability using the button that says Check Availability.
15 years of therapist salary data for Psychologists, counselors, social workers, and MFTs
How much does the average Psychologist, counselor, MFT, or social worker make? Are salaries rising or falling relative to inflation? Therapist salary data can tell us a lot about the overall health of the professions. I’ve gathered 15 years of therapist salary data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to see what insights can be gained from it.