As you now know, the petitioned candidates were all voted in and that means that we were successful in joining together to make a difference. I attended the CAMFT conference in Indian Wells and wanted you to know a few things if you were not able to attend. There were over 600 CAMFT members attending. There was an Annual business meeting with 120 members in attendance, though it was not enough members to vote on any matters. A quorum is 180 members.
I wanted to pass along some information I have learned about the LPCC’s. I think there is still a lot of confusion over their impact in California.
1. LPCCs have their own organization, and chose not to be part of CAMFT: http://calpcc.org/ They've had it for several years.
2. In ALL other states, LPCCs pre-existed before MFTs; MFTs came second. This is not the case in CA which is why we have more MFTs in our state than the whole rest of the country combined - and that's because of CAMFT. In the other states, MFTs are a small percentage of the mental health professionals (I think the figure is around 5%). But again - that's because MFTs came second, behind LPCCs. LPCCs NEVER "took over" and "beat out the MFTs" in other states. It's simply that MFTs came afterwards and the license has never gained in popularity outside of California, probably due to grad schools already set up for LPCs/LPCCs in other states, unlike here. Recall California was the 50th state to adopt the LPCC license and we waited a long time.
3. AAMFT is an organization promoting "marriage and family therapy" not "Marriage and Family Therapists" - HUGE difference. Anybody who practices therapy with couples and families can be a voting member of AAMFT. They simply have to profess that they've had training and education in marriage and family therapy, and that it's a significant portion of their practice. Therefore psychologists, social workers, professional counselors, pastoral counselors and even psychiatrists can all be members of AAMFT.
If you missed the April 25th meeting where CAMFT Executive Director Jill Epstein was our guest speaker, you can watch videos of the presentation by clicking on these links:
Part I
http://youtu.be/XeDS7q6q8ks
Part II
http://youtu.be/Y-DBvnL6oVI
I look forward seeing you at the next Inland Empire CAMFT meeting, Friday, May 23, 2014.
Janine Murray, LMFT
President, Inland Empire CAMFT
