Behavioral sciences

The law gives marriage and family therapist, clinical social worker, and professional clinical counselor associates more time to complete licensure and limited hardship access to private-practice work. It also standardizes recency rules for required experience and exams across four behavioral-science professions.

What the law does ​

• Requires qualifying experience and licensing examinations for marriage and family therapists, educational psychologists, clinical social workers, and professional clinical counselors to be completed or passed within seven years before the Board of Behavioral Sciences receives the license application.
• Beginning with applications received after January 1, 2030, requires the California law and ethics exam to have been passed within the prior seven years for initial licenses and subsequent associate registrations.
• Extends associate registrations from five renewals over six years to six renewals over seven years for marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, and professional clinical counselors.
• Allows a one-time, two-year hardship extension for a subsequent associate registration to work or volunteer at one approved private practice or professional corporation.
• Requires unlicensed applicants, associates, registrants, interns, and trainees to tell clients they are unlicensed and supervised and identify their employer or volunteer entity.
• Exempts qualifying faith-based counseling by religious officials, including imams, from these licensing laws when it is unpaid beyond customary compensation, religious or spiritual in context, and does not diagnose or treat mental health disorders.
• Exempts attorneys and physicians providing counseling as part of their professional practice from the marriage and family therapist and professional clinical counselor licensing laws.
• Eliminates the $20 fee for rescoring written examinations.

Who it affects ​

• Applicants, trainees, associates, registrants, and licensees in marriage and family therapy, clinical social work, professional clinical counseling, and educational psychology.
• Private practices and professional corporations that employ or use qualifying associates under a hardship extension.
• Clients receiving services from unlicensed behavioral-health practitioners under supervision.
• Religious officials providing qualifying faith-based counseling, along with attorneys and physicians who provide counseling as part of their practices.

Context ​

The Board of Behavioral Sciences continues to regulate the covered behavioral-health professions and handle complaints involving its licensees and registrants.