Contents:

• President's Column
• Pending Changes to the Virginia Regulations for Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists
• Feature Article: "The Older We Get, The Farther We See"
• Student Grant
• VAMFC Logo Contest

Editor's Corner
 
 



President's Column

Charles R. McAdams, III

As the new president of VAMFC, let me extend a warm greeting to all of our members and to those readers who may be interested in our organization. This is the first newsletter under the new Board of Directors, and I am honored to be working with an exceptional group of counselors and students who are committed to actively representing and supporting issues in the practice, training, and education of marriage and family counseling. I want to recognize Barbara Morgan for her leadership as VAMFC president over the past year and particularly for her willingness to assume that challenging role during the startup year of her full-time private counseling practice. Barbara's efforts on behalf of VAMFC during the year as well as her support and guidance to me during my transition to this role have been invaluable and are greatly appreciated. Finally, my thanks are extended to Jason Hayes, our past Treasurer, for his efforts in facilitating the transition of the financial records from one administration to another a smooth one.

We are proceeding into a new year and toward a new century that undoubtedly hold enormous opportunities and challenges for the field of marriage and family counseling and for VAMFC. In his book Family Therapy, History, Theory, and Practice, 2nd Edition, Samuel Gladding (1998) cites five predictions elicited from experienced practitioners about the future of the field of marriage and family counseling. According to prediction, the future holds that:

Family therapy treatments will be briefer and more goal oriented as they become more strongly influenced by insurance reimbursement policies.

The practice of family therapy will, toward a goal of maximum efficiency, become more integrated and collaborative and less driven by singular theoretical perspectives.

Family therapy intervention will, in the interest of accountability, become more closely aligned with the treatment of specified psychiatric disorders that have been shown to respond positively to such intervention.

The practice of family therapy will pay more attention to the therapist-family relationship as an agent of healing, recognizing that families, not individuals, have the greatest potential to help heal those of their members that have been hurt.

Family therapists will become similar to physicians in offering clinical services based on empirical research data instead of what they intuitively expect will work.

In addition Gladding suggests that family counselors will be required to work with an increasingly diverse range of families and issues. What were once considered non-traditional family forms (single-parent, dual-working, blended, etc.) now outnumber traditional nuclear families, and families as well as their problems can be expected to become even more diversified and complex in the future. Reflected in these predictions are significant anticipated changes in the professional environment surrounding marriage and family counseling preparation and practice. To remain healthy and viable in the 21st century, our profession, much like the client families it serves, will need to be able to adapt efficiently and effectively to significant changes in the environment without compromising integrity or losing sight of the interests and values of individual members. The task will not be accomplished in isolation and will depend on collective efforts of all marriage and family counselors to identify needs for change, to develop strategies for responding to changing needs, and to effectively convey the new information to appropriate policy-making bodies. VAMFC will play a crucial role in this process by serving as the collective voice of Virginia's marriage and family counselors. It stands to reason that greater levels of member participation in the organization will increase the chances that our voice will be heard by the appropriate decision-makers. In preparation for the challenges of the new millennium, I propose that 1999/2000 should be a time for increasing both the size and active involvement of the VAMFC membership. There are numerous ways for members to become involved.

One direct way is to attend the VAMFC Division Meeting scheduled from 4:00 to 6:00 PM on Thursday, November 11 during the VCA convention. The location of the meeting has not yet been determined, but will be announced in the convention locator guide that accompanies the registration packet. I hope that all VAMFC members attending VCA will join the board at this meeting for a discussion of business issues and the future of VAMFC, both immediate and long-term. Professional trends, topics for the newsletter, legislative updates, and any other issues pertinent to the mission of VAMFC are welcome and needed to ensure that the needs of the members and the field are reflected in the activities of our organization.

One agenda item for the Division meeting will be the planning of a day-long professional development workshop that VAMFC hopes to sponsor this spring. In the past, the provision of professional development opportunities has shown to be an effective way for our organization to provide a direct service to its members and the professional community. I can think of no better way of ensuring that this training will be relevant to our members' needs than through their direct involvement in its development. Members are invited to join the Board in this planning process.

As always, VAMFC will sponsor an exhibit at the VCA Convention taking place November 10 to 13 in Williamsburg. We are currently in the process of updating the exhibit to convey the most current themes and activities of our organization, and we hope that all VAMFC members attending the convention will make a point of dropping by to visit or volunteering to host the exhibit for an hour or so. A number of past and present board members are presenting at VCA on a diversity of topics including:

the unique aspects of counseling fathers,

gallows humor as means of catharsis and coping

the use of poetry in counseling,

psychosocial issues of HIV-infected children,

career counseling for student athletes,

the impact of client suicide on counselors, and

sleep deprivation as a counseling issue.

Members may be interested in attending these sessions to learn more about the different presentation topics as well as about the Board and its members. Board and committee membership offer members a means of providing an invaluable service to VAMFC and the profession.

 To our current and prospective membership, I represent the Board of Directors in articulating a commitment to continue providing opportunities for student and professional counselors to expand their skills in working effectively with families and couples in such diverse settings as schools, agencies, and private practice. Your involvement in VAMFC will provide direction and valuable resources to our efforts. I welcome your suggestions, feedback, and guidance over the next year, and I thank all members for your vital support. I hope that the VCA Convention will be an opportunity to meet and share our perspectives as colleagues in the dynamic and challenging field of marriage and family counseling.

 

Pending Changes to the Virginia Regulations for Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists

(Report to the VAMFC Membership)

Stephen S. Walker, LPC

 On July 9, 1997, regulations governing the practice of Licensed Marriage & Family Therapy (LMFT) were placed in effect by the Virginia Department of Health Professions. These regulations, known as 18 VAC 115-50-10 et. seq., require anyone in private practice as a Marriage & Family Therapist (MFT) in Virginia to be licensed as such by the Virginia Board of Licensed Professional Counselors, Marriage & Family Therapists, and Substance Abuse Professionals (Board). The Virginia statute creating the MFT license was passed by the state assembly in 1995 after successful lobbying efforts by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and its accrediting body, the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE).

 As originally written, the existing LMFT regulations define a specific list of requirements for MFT licensure, including:

Education Requirements: 60 semester (90 quarter) hours of graduate-level course work in MFT including a graduate degree in MFT or a related discipline. Mandated pre-degree the course work includes 9 semester (12 quarter) hours in Marriage and Family Studies and 9 semester (12 quarter) hours in MFT. (To meet these requirements, people who have already completed their degree programs in counseling and are currently working under supervision with the intent to be marriage and family therapists must get a second Master's degree.)

Internship: minimum of one year, to include 300 hours of supervised direct client contact with individuals, couples, and families. (This requirement is also impossible to meet for most people who have graduated under the various counseling programs of study in place in Virginia as of July 9, 1997. Again, those persons would have to get a second Master's degree.)

Residency Supervision: a supervisor for the MFT residency must be able to document specific training in the supervision of other MFTs. (Until July 9, 1997, such supervisors were not required by regulation. Until the new regulatory process has time to create more of this new class of supervisors, they will be difficult for residents to find.

These are the requirements currently in effect for the LMFT. The wording of these regulations makes it difficult for anyone from a non-COAMFTE-accredited graduate program, and/or anyone who does not have an AAMFT-certified supervisor, to be approved to sit for the MFT license exam without first getting a second Master's degree. At present, the only institution in Virginia with a COAMFTE-approved graduate curriculum is Virginia Tech. Thus, as written, the current LMFT regulations unintentionally disenfranchise people who were preparing to be MFTs under the LPC regulations in effect prior to July 9, 1997.

 On June 9, 1997, a group of Radford University graduate students petitioned the Board therapists to revise the LMFT regulations to permit students and residents working toward licensure prior to July 9, 1997 to sit for the MFT license exam if their original intent was to practice as MFTs. The Board thoughtfully reviewed this petition and concluded that revisions could be considered by the Board's Regulatory Committee. As a result, a number of important revisions have been made to the LMFT regulations. Among them are the following key requirements:

Degree Program Requirements: a graduate degree from a program that prepares individuals to practice MFT or a discipline related to the practice of MFT. The degree must be received from a college or university that is accredited by a regional accrediting agency. There must be a documented sequence of study that prepares students to practice MFT. There must be an identifiable MFT faculty and an identifiable body of students who complete the sequence of study. The academic unit must have clear authority and primary responsibility for the core and specialty areas. Academic programs approved by COAMFTE and CACREP meet these requirements.(This revised wording permits graduates from other accredited academic programs and institutions in Virginia to become candidates for MFT licensure if their programs of study provide education in a related discipline, and there is a faculty and student body dedicated to this related field. The requirement that the graduate degree include a specific number of credit hours in MFT or other core areas pre-degree has been removed.)

Course Work Requirements: Complete 60 semester hours (90 quarter hours) of graduate study, including - 6 semester (9 quarter) hours in Marriage and Family Studies (marital and family development, family systems theory); and 6 semester (9 quarter) hours in Marriage and Family Therapy (systemic therapeutic intervention and application of major theoretical approaches). (The revised course work requirements are now 6 semester hours in each of the two core MFT areas of study. These requirements are no longer pre-degree, and they are now more representative of the existing programs of study statewide that have been training and graduating marriage and family counselors and therapists for years. Note: Other LMFT course work requirements are similar to those for LPCs and are itemized in the LMFT regulations.)

Internship: Supervised internship of 600 hours to include 240 hours of direct client contact. Three hundred of the internship hours and 120 of the direct client contact hours shall be with couples and families.(This revision will hopefully allow students, residents, and LPCs who began their internship prior to July 9, 1997 to qualify for the MFT exam as long as these new internship standards are met.)

Residency: At least two years of post graduate degree experience, representing no fewer than 4000 hours of supervised work experience, to include 200 hours of face-to-face supervision with the supervisor in the practice of MFT. 2000 hours must be direct client contact, with 1000 hours of contact with couples or families.(These residency hours requirements are stringent but appropriate and they appear to be achievable by most LPC residency programs. Note: Other residency requirements are itemized in the LMFT regulations.)

Supervisory Requirements: A person who provides supervision for a resident in MFT shall be licensed as an MFT, professional counselor, clinical psychologist, clinical social worker, or psychiatrist in the jurisdiction where the supervision is provided. (This revised guideline for supervisors of MFT residents is feasible, and it opens the role of supervisor to the same professional groups allowable as supervisors for LPC residents. Note: Other supervisory requirements are itemized in the LMFT regulations.)

These revisions are scheduled for formal adoption by the Board during its November 19, 1999 meeting at the Department of Health Professions in Richmond. Once adopted, the revised LMFT regulations will pass through a final 30-day comment period and, barring an appeal to the governor, will take effect in January, 2000.Graduate students, residents, and LPCs interested in sitting for the LMFT exam should obtain more information concerning the revised LMFT regulations from the Board by calling (804) 662-9912.

The Regulatory Committee, chaired by Dr. Rosemarie Hughes, Dean of Counseling at Regent University, has proposed revised LMFT regulations which appear to meet the needs and concerns raised by the Radford petition. This effort has been completed after two years of dedicated and arduous work by Dr. Hughes and the Regulatory Committee. During this time, the efforts of the Regulatory Committee and the Board have been supported by the original Radford petitioners, faculty and graduate students from counseling programs at several other Virginia universities, the VAMFC, and the IAMFC. In this observer's opinion, the Regulatory Committee and the Board have done an outstanding job of resolving a very complex issue.

 

"The Older We Get, The Farther We See"

Charles R. McAdams, III

The recent school shootings in Colorado and elsewhere have sensitized all of us to the reality that we are always at risk of becoming the victims of physical violence. That reality is particularly poignant for counselors and other human service professionals who work routinely with individuals and families whose life situations have rendered them at high risk for violent behavior. I became aware of the reality of violence early in my career while working as a residential counselor in treatment programs for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in the late 1970's. My first clients were angry, hurt, and frustrated young people for whom violent behavior had often become the only form of personal power and control they felt they had left to them. As a consequence, they were more likely to act on their problems physically and, sometimes, violently than to seek out or accept outside assistance with problem solving.

For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I felt an early connection with these difficult youth and an absence of intimidation by their threatening behaviors. Perhaps thanks to good supervision, I was more quickly able than some to see through the ugliness of their aggressive behavior to the pain and suffering that was at its source. Perhaps as a result of my military experience, their level of violence seemed, at least on a relative scale, minimally threatening. At any rate, I give credit to those levels of understanding and comfort for my early successes with my clients, successes that guided my career direction for over 10 years.

Between 1981 and 1992 I was responsible for the development and implementation of a continuum of treatment services for children assigned to the State of North Carolina's Willie M. Program, a program designed specifically to serve the treatment needs of the State's population of assaultive and aggressive youth. Services were provided along a continuum ranging from most to least restrictive that included secure residential and day treatment (most restrictive), community-based residential and day treatment, treatment foster care, independent living, outpatient individual and group counseling (least restrictive). Within the continuum, children could move toward less restrictive, more personally empowering settings as their attitudes and behaviors improved, with the ultimate goal being their return to their natural families.

My sense of personal success was strongly reinforced by my work with "Willie M." class youth as I saw a number of them have positive changes in attitudes and behaviors while enrolled in treatment programs of my design. When provided with structure, supervision, and reinforcement levels that were accurately matched to individual need, and when engaged in therapeutic individual and group counseling relationships, even some of the most troubled youth responded positively and made substantial personal changes. I felt a strong sense of personal pride each time a student successfully completed a program and was discharged back to home and community. Each planned discharge seemed to be a testament to the success of the treatment program and an endorsement of my own abilities as a counselor, supervisor, and administrator.

One result of having stayed with my work with Willie M.-class youth for so long, is that I was around long enough to follow the paths of some of my "success stories" after completion of their treatment program and even into adulthood. Unfortunately or many, the successes that were experienced during treatment were clearly temporary. When removed from the environment of the treatment program and returned to the family environment from which they had come, many, if not most, of the youth appeared to be unable to maintain the positive changes that they made, as indicated by significant numbers of re-referrals. More than a few graduates of my programs gained subsequent notoriety through their involvement in illegal activities, and in at least two of those cases, the criminal activity included violence. Though well aware of the inherent limitations in any mental health treatment process, increasing incidences of successes-turned-sour had caused me to rethink the degree of personal and professional success I could claim by the end of my tenure with Willie M.

It was about this time that, through a professional relationship, I was introduced to the theory and practice of family counseling. Having left my professional position to complete my doctoral studies, I was fortunate to have the time as well as the opportunity to work with couples and families in supervised private and public agency settings. As a result of those experiences, I came to appreciate the significance, if not the futility, of the task that I had attempted to do for the previous ten years: to treat the individual youth in isolation from their family systems. Until I came to fully understand and appreciate the power and complexity of family dynamics, I believed that children could be "fortified" through intrapsychic therapy to withstand and overcome problematic family dynamics through counseling interventions. I am now skeptical of that notion and, instead, believe on the basis of my collective experiences, that the most beneficial interventions for violent youth may be those that are implemented in collaboration with their families to the fullest extent possible. I have come to see that counselors serving violent youth in the absence of family involvement and support face a daunting challenge and, at best, an uncertain outcome. I have become convinced that counselors who attempt to serve such youth without at least acknowledging the powerful role of their families in their lives (whether present or absent) are destined to experience high rates of failure and frustration in their efforts. More than once I can recall myself thinking or saying "If we could just get this difficult mother (or father) out of the picture, I think we could really get somewhere with this kid!"

From a clinical standpoint, it actually did not require a lot to bring about positive attitudinal and behavioral changes in some of the most at-risk Willie M. youth; they responded quite significantly to conditions of consistently applied structure, supervision, and encouragement. I expect that, upon graduation, many would have continued their positive change if those conditions could have been maintained within their family environments. However, given that, in most cases, there was no effort within the treatment process to address family system difficulties, I now realize that any hopes of their maintaining change after graduation were probably dashed from the beginning. Challenging the youth to continue their accomplishment after graduation, while knowing that they would have to do so in isolation, seems now to be more that we had a right to ask of them and an almost sure set up for their eventual failure. Any additional effort and resources that would have been needed to integrate family services into the continuum of treatment would, I believe, have been a sound and necessary investment in our young clients' future success.

I realize that for some young people, fortification against induction into family system dysfunction may be the only course of treatment available when the larger system is not directly accessible to the treatment process. However, even without direct access to a child's family, a thorough understanding and acknowledgement of the family system's influence on his or her attitude and behavior benefits the counseling process by helping to foster within a counselor the kind of empathic understanding that is necessary for therapeutic effectiveness. By helping the counselor see and acknowledge the complex and dynamic underpinnings of a child's attitudes and behaviors (i.e., the enormity of the child's problems), a systemic perspective can also help to reduce counselor frustration and self-doubt when progress in treatment is understandably slow.

I look back on my earlier experiences in work with aggressive youth with some regret that I was not able to offer more to my clients at the time, but with much greater appreciation for how the experience has benefited my subsequent work as a counselor, supervisor, and educator. Had I, in my earlier experiences, been more willing and able to see beyond the symptomatic children and extend my intervention efforts to their families as well, I suspect that my sense of the outcome of those efforts would be more positive. As a result of my earlier experiences, it is now hard for me as a counselor to view an individual client that I am working with in isolation from the context of his or her family system, regardless of whether the entire family is involved in the counseling process. As a counselor supervisor and educator, I now challenge my students to assume a systems perspective in both their individual and family counseling endeavors. I hope that through my instruction and encouragement, they will begin their counseling careers with this invaluable perspective that, for me, took many years of frustrating experience to acquire.

 

VAMFC Student Grant

 The VAMFC board recently voted to establish a $250.00 research grant to fund student research in family counseling. Those interested in applying for this grant should submit a proposal to:

Dr. Rip McAdams

College of William & Mary

Jones Hall, Room 318

Williamsburg, Virginia 23187

 Grant proposals should include the following information:

name and student status (masters, doctoral)

institution

purpose of research (including brief theoretical rationale/lit review and hypotheses)

description of research (including assessment methods)

tentative time frame to complete research

statement reflecting how this research will enhance the profession of family counseling

statement reflecting how the grant funds will be used

 Grant recipients agree to provide a report of the results of the research to the VAMFC board following completion of the study. Deadline for application is August 31, 1999.Grant proposals should be no longer than two pages and include the applicant's full name, address, and telephone number.Grant will be awarded by October 31, 1999.

Logo Contest

The VAMFC board is in the process of creating a new logo. We are calling on the creative talents of our membership to help us adopt a logo that best describes our mission. The VAMFC mission statement calls for:

the promotion of the counseling profession and the practice of marital and family therapy

the encouragement of high professional standards and conduct

involvement in legislation and public policy affecting the practice of family counseling

encouragement and support of scientific research and inquiry regarding family counseling

advocacy for families including sensitivity to cultural issues

 A $25.00 prize is offered to the winning entry. Please submit entries. Colonial Heights, Virginia 23834

 

Editor's Corner

Contributions to the newsletter are always welcome. For submissions or suggestions please contact: Avis Quinn at: acquinn@bellatlantic.net or 540-953-3009

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