It takes a special person to choose a career as a substance abuse, or behavioral disorder counselor is a noble choice. These healthcare professionals spend every day helping others overcome enormous challenges, often with little or no recognition. You are to be commended for making the commitment to pursue certification and licensure in this field.
At the Lento Law Firm, we want you to know that we honor what you do, that we believe in your mission, and that we want to do everything we can to help you get there. Counseling jobs are unique in that the path to licensure or certification varies from state to state. Whatever that path looks like for you, though, we want you to know that we're here to help you overcome whatever obstacles you may face along the way.
Common Issues and Concerns on the Way to Substance Abuse or Behavioral Disorder Licensure
Every state in the US has a different set of requirements for substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors. Almost all of them demand counselors be licensed by an approved state agency. California recognizes certification from several different agencies, including the California Association for Alcohol and Drug Educators (CAADE), the California Association of DUI Treatment Programs (CADTP), and the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP).
The only way to know for sure what's required in your state is to check out the licensure process on your state's government website. However, there are a number of commonalities in these requirements. For example, virtually every state requires its counselors have a college degree, either a BA or a Master's. Likewise, almost every state requires counselors to undertake a residency program or some other form of practical training that provides supervised experience in a clinical setting.
What kinds of challenges can you expect along the way to gaining your license or certification, no matter where you are?
- Issues of academic performance
- Evaluations of your professional and ethical fitness
- Competency exams, such as those offered by the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IR&IC)
- State boards and licensure
Along the way, you never know when other serious problems may come up as well, such as
- General misconduct allegations
- Sexual misconduct allegations
You'll find information about all of these subjects below. As a starting point, though, you should know that whatever challenge you might be facing, an attorney-advisor like Joseph D. Lento can be a valuable asset for getting through it.
Expectations
Let's dig a little deeper into just what's expected of you along your journey to licensure and certification as a counselor. Again, every state is different, but there are some expectations and standards you can count on, no matter where you plan to practice.
- Academic excellence: First up, you'll almost certainly need a college degree. Generally speaking, that means a BA or Master's degree in social work, psychology, or a related field. Some schools offer degrees specifically oriented around training in substance abuse and behavioral disorders, and these can give you an obvious advantage in obtaining your license. For example, the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington offers a Bachelor of Science in Substance Use and Treatment (BSSUT). Other schools offer post-graduate work in this field. NYU, for instance, offers a post-master's certificate program in Clinical Approaches to the Addictions.
Whatever school you attend and whatever degree program you decide to enter, you can expect to be held to high academic standards. Colleges and universities demand the best from all their students, but as someone who's planning to work in the field of public health, you'll be held to even higher standards. If you're studying for a BA in psychology at UCLA, for instance, you can be put on probation if your GPA falls below 2.0, and should it remain below 2.0, you can be dismissed from the program. If you're going for a master's in social work at the University of Georgia, the expectations are even higher. You can be placed on probation should your GPA fall below 3.0.
- Clinical requirements: Most states also require that you have practical field experience before they grant you a license. Massachusetts, for instance, requires 300 hours of supervised practical training in counseling plus an additional 6,000 hours of supervised training in alcohol and drug counseling. Minnesota requires counselors to have 2,000 hours of supervised training and complete an 880-hour practicum.
Throughout your clinical training, you'll be expected to demonstrate ethics and professionalism, adhere to all clinical rules and regulations, and to follow all instructions from your supervising counselor.
- Professionalism and ethics: Serving as a substance abuse or behavioral disorder counselor is all about helping others. To do that, you have to build trust both with individual patients and with the community at large. You can't help an addict begin the process of recovery if they don't trust you implicitly.
The foundation of that trust is your ethics and professionalism. Addiction and behavioral disorder counselors have a number of different organizations and associations, and many of these provide lists of the core ethical values those in the profession should practice. Sometimes these can be quite extensive. The National Association of Addiction Professionals (NAADAC) offers a complete guide to ethics that includes 30 to 50 individual strictures on each of the following topics:
- Counseling relationships
- Confidentiality and privilege
- Professional responsibilities and workplace standards
- Cultural diversity
- Assessment and evaluation
- Supervision and consultation
- Resolving ethical concerns
- Research and publication
You can expect your school, your clinical supervisors, and your state's licensing board will hold you to standards in all of these areas.
At this point, you might be asking: how can an attorney help me with these issues? Certainly, it is true that navigating your coursework and developing a sense of values and ethics are largely on your shoulders. An attorney's job, though, is to put things right when you run into trouble. Getting your education and training can be a complex process, and there are plenty of problems that can come up along the way.
Joseph D. Lento can help draft grade appeals should you fall behind in your coursework. He can coach you on how to talk to your clinical rotation supervisors about poor evaluations. He can accompany you to disciplinary hearings and help you present your defense. Can you handle these issues on your own? Maybe. Your best chance of success, though, always lies in having a professional on your side.
Misconduct
No one's perfect, not even counselors—sometimes, especially not counselors. In fact, many counselors go into the profession precisely because they've made mistakes themselves, and they see the value in helping others overcome such mistakes.
The trick is to make sure your mistakes don't define you and that they don't interfere with your ability to get licensed.
Below, you'll find a list of some of the kinds of trouble aspiring counselors can get into, and a discussion of how to deal with that trouble should it find you.
Academic Misconduct
We've talked around about how high academic standards can sometimes be. Those standards drive some students to bend the rules.
- Cheating: Using unauthorized resources to complete your coursework. That can mean anything from looking at a classmate's paper during an exam to asking someone else to take the exam for you. It can also include the use of unauthorized digital resources. In simple terms, if the answers come from someplace other than your own head and that someplace hasn't been approved by your instructor, you're almost certainly cheating.
- Plagiarism: Trying to pass another person's words or ideas off as your own. As with cheating, plagiarism includes many different kinds of misconduct. Buying your term paper from an online paper mill would obviously qualify. So too, though, would failing to properly document a source.
- Falsification: Making up or inventing materials as part of coursework or misrepresenting yourself to school officials.
- Sabotage: Destroying school property or work produced by another student.
It's entirely possible to find yourself in trouble even if you haven't actually done anything wrong. Cheating is on the rise, and instructors have become increasingly paranoid lately. Whatever your specific situation, academic misconduct, particularly in a graduate program, is usually treated as a serious offense, one that could even get you dismissed from your school.
In fact, even an allegation of academic misconduct can keep you from getting your license. The good news is all schools have procedures for defending yourself from such accusations. Some universities utilize a basic appeals process, where you make your case to various administrators in the program's chain of command—department heads, deans, and provosts. At San Jose State, for instance, the process starts with asking the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development to consider your case. If that should fail, you can further appeal to the school's Student Fairness Committee. Other schools, such as the one at Texas Tech, allow you to defend yourself at a formal hearing before three or more decision-makers.
Disciplinary Misconduct
Your school will also hold you to certain behavioral standards, and the expectations will continue as you move into your clinical rotations and actually enter the profession. While disciplinary misconduct is defined differently depending on where you study and work, some behaviors are universally prohibited.
- Substance abuse: More and more states have legalized marijuana usage, but there's still federal law to worry about. No school or clinic wants to risk its funding or reputation by allowing students to openly break the law. More importantly, if your job is to help others break the addiction cycle, you don't want to be engaged in substance abuse yourself.
- Discrimination and harassment: Again, all schools and clinics have strict rules against harassment, particularly of protected classes such as race, sex, religion, ethnicity, age, gender status, and disability. Certainly, this extends to physical actions, but it may also include verbal and online comments.
- Weapons possession: Most schools prohibit the possession of any weapons—legal or illegal—on campus. Most clinics generally frown on weapons possession as well. This includes firearms, explosives, dangerous chemicals, and even fireworks.
- Theft: This typically includes any sort of damage or misuse of property, whether it's the school's, a student's, the clinic's, a colleague's, or a patient's.
As with academic misconduct, all schools and clinical programs have procedures for addressing policy violations. If you're facing a serious sanction like dismissal, most programs will give you an opportunity to defend yourself at a formal hearing. Hearings, though, can often be complicated proceedings, and you're always better off if you have an experienced attorney-advisor to guide you through the process.
Sexual Misconduct
Sexual misconduct is usually treated as a special kind of behavioral misconduct. That's because it's not just subject to school policy but to federal law. Title IX prohibits all forms of sexual discrimination and harassment in federally-funded educational programs—that includes universities and residency programs—and it requires administrators to investigate all credible allegations.
Title IX also includes a set of rules and procedures for how schools should investigate and adjudicate such allegations.
According to the guidelines, for instance, all cases must include
- Thorough investigation
- Live hearing
- Process for appealing the hearing outcome
In addition, these guidelines entitle you to some important due process rights. For example, you have the right to
- Notification of the charges, including the name of the Complainant (the alleged victim) and details of the allegation
- A presumption of "Not Responsible" (innocent) until you are proven "Responsible" (guilty)
- An advisor, who may be an attorney
- Investigators and decision-makers who are free of bias
- Review all evidence in the case
- Equal treatment to the Complainant in all matters
Keep in mind that a Title IX case isn't the same as an actual court case, and while you do have some valuable rights, you don't have all the rights you'd get in a court of law. For example, decision-makers don't have to find you Responsible "beyond a reasonable doubt." If they feel it's more than fifty percent likely you committed an offense, they're allowed to find you responsible (guilty).
Title IX procedures are complex. The rules themselves run to some 550 pages, and that doesn't include all the court opinions and presidential memorandums that have been issued in the last twenty years. There are plenty of mistakes you can make that will doom your defense. You should never try to handle one of these cases on your own. The law gives you the right to an attorney for a reason: you need one for cases this complex.
Getting Help
In most instances, your school or clinical residency program will allow you legal representation no matter what kind of problem you may be facing. Even when it doesn't, though, an attorney can still be an invaluable resource. They can help you put your case together, from developing a strategy, to collecting evidence, to tracking down witnesses. They can help you practice responding to questions and making presentations. They can help you draft documents. Most importantly, though, an attorney can keep an eye on the entire process to make sure no one violates your rights.
Not just any attorney will do, though. You need a lawyer who specializes in representing allied health professionals, someone who understands the particular educational and training demands you face, and who has experience handling academic and healthcare-related environments. A local or family attorney won't understand your particular set of needs. They may not understand just how much is at stake in a school hearing or know what to do if their clinical supervisor gives them a poor evaluation.
Joseph D. Lento built his career helping aspiring allied health professionals just like you keep their dreams on track. Joseph D. Lento understands the law, particularly as it applies to education and training. He's also experienced in dealing with administrators and navigating bureaucracy. Joseph D. Lento believes you work hard and that what you do is valuable, and he'll do whatever it takes to make sure you succeed.
Whether you've been accused of misconduct or you're trying to get a supervisor to change their evaluation, the Lento Law Firm can help. Don't wait. Contact the Lento Law Firm today at 888-555-3686, or use our automated online form.
