VAMFT Newsletter (v. 3, no. 1)

• A Letter from the President
• Update on Licensing and LMFT Regulations
• A Letter from Your Past President
• Virginia Gives National MFT Exam

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A Letter from the President
by Anne Prouty, President

Happy New Year! 1998 brings an energetic board to your service. I join all members in a sincere thank you to all past board members and committee chairs as we have several new and exciting projects underway.

The Research and Marketing Committee has joined AAMFT's efforts. The survey of clinical members met with an overwhelmingly positive return rate. Congratulations to Dr. Miranda Breit who won the drawing (from returning the survey). VAMFT will pay for half of her registration fee for the '98 AAMFT Conference!! We are currently analyzing your responses to the survey. We are also gathering information for the Licensing and Legislative and Research and Marketing committees to use toward future goals of more avid promotion of the MFT field in Virginia and steps toward vendership. The Professional Development, Membership, and Ethics committees will be looking into collaborating with fellow mental health professionals around local and special event training seminars.

The Licensing and Legislative Committee, along with our lobbyist David Bailey, will continue to monitor mental health legislation. It is also interested in promoting the integrity, ethics and high standards of the MFT profession, and assuring all regulations geverning the practice of MFT in Virginia are in the citizens' best interest.

We are also developing a web site that we hope will provide a finger-tip link between the VAMFT membership and the Association's committees, newsletters, current projects, board members, and legislative activities. I encourage everyone to visit AAMFT Central's web page at http://www.aamft.org, as it has a lot on new features.

I am very excited to be your new president and to get the opportunity to work with so many talented and dedicated family therapists. I encourage anyone who could volunteer time on a committee to do so - it's a great way to exchange ideas and support your profession!!

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Update on Licensing and LMFT Regulations
by Anne Prouty

As of February 1998 we have over 260 Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists in Virginia!! We expect the number to continue to increase with the expiration of the grace period on January and the soon approaching closure of the "grandparenting" period on July 7, 1998. One of the goals of our VAMFT Board will be to brainstorm and develop new methods of continuing education and networking opportunities for our members and promote the education of more approved supervisors to help Associate members earn clinical member status toward the goal of making them ready to apply for the LMFT license.

The Licensing Board is currently very busy with the revisions to the LPC regulations and the development of the regulations for Alcohol and Drug Treatment Professionals. The regulations covering LMFTs are also under review with 7 areas for potential changes to the regulations. There is a PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD UNTIL MARCH 4, 1998. Here are the 7 areas as outlined in the recent notice to me from the Licensing Board.

The purpose of this action is to develop a mechanism to allow individuals whose marriage and family therapy graduate programs currently fall short of regulations to meet the requirements for licensure, and to further amend the regulations as follows:

• Clarify the one-year internship requirement, by expressing in terms of equivalent semester hours. Consider reducing the client contact hour requirement for internship.
• Determine work experience equivalencies for the supervised experience requirement for endorsement of individuals with lengthy experience licensed in other jurisdictions. Clarify that the official transcript is required for documentation of the educational requirement.
• Include acceptance of programs accredited by agencies whose accreditation requirements are equivalent to COAMFTE.
• Adjust the supervision hours if Executive Order 15 amendments to the Regulations Governing the Practice of Professional Counseling result in inconsistencies.
• Determine what specific training or experience in the supervision of marriage and family therapy would be acceptable by the Board.
• Consider alternatives to meeting the education and experience requirements for supervisors to allow "grandfathered" individuals to provide supervision.
• Include a licensure expiration date in the regulations.

At this time the VAMFT Board supports maintaining the high standards of the profession of marriage and family therapy, as outlined by the educational and clinical requirements of clinical members in AAMFT and the educational requirements approved and monitored by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE). We support the 500 clinical hour requirement with 100 hours of continuous clinical supervision requirement. (At this time the only accrediting body acknowledged by the Department of Education for accrediting clinical training programs in marriage and family therapy graduate and postgraduate programs is COAMFTE.) I urge you to send letters or faxes supporting the maintainance of strong regulations that include clinical and educational requirements. The regulations regarding LMFT need to include requirements for clinical systemic MFT supervisors; requirements that are more clinically advanced than those for therapists, and that include a didactic component based in systems theory. For more information feel free to call Anne Prouty, Wally Scott, or call the Licensing Board Directly at 804-662-9912. Their address is:



Thank you in advance!!!
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A Letter from Your Past President
Scott Johnson: "Saying Thanks"

While it isn't Thanksgiving, it is time to say thanks. Inevitably, there are always more people who have contributed to our work than we really know, and few memories are perfect, so inevitably deserving names are omitted. But it is an important gesture, even if inevitably partial, so here is my list of people deserving special thanks for their service over the past two years.

High on the list is Judi Booker, LMFT, outgoing Treasurer, whose dedication and attention to detail led us to our first budget surpluses in several years. She instituted and enforced better accounting practices, revived outside fiscal reviews, and served generally with great distinction. She will be sorely missed.

Equally important have been the contributions of Pam Staszak and her Professional Development Committee members around the state. Pam and her husband traveled the Commonwealth tirelessly for the last two years, organizing our Town Meetings, buying food, setting up tables, sending out flyers, and scheduling presenters. In all this they were ably assisted by members like Marjorie Deutsch, Wally Scott, and the late Jim Consoli. Pam and her colleagues' work resulted in the most successful gatherings the division has had in several years, and is a model for even better things to come.

Rick Peterson, Teri Ancelloti, and Linda Milkie also deserve mention, as the first Elections Committee to serve in several years. They stepped forward to serve their colleagues in an important role that had for some time been neglected. This was also the case with Eric McCollum, who took over as Newsletter Editor and revitalized an essential part of our organization.

Yvonne Barry Cataldi, with Judi Booker and Phil Greenwood, should be noted for excellent and vital service in proctoring the National Examination in Marital and Family Therapy last November. Handling the exam materials for such a test, and serving as administrators, is an extremely demanding exercise, somewhat akin to handling deposits at Fort Knox. Procedures must be checked and rechecked and followed to the letter. Yvonne, Judi, and Phil, and our Interns Kerri Felton, Melissa Evans, and Courtney Markowski did an admirable job on this score, and established a tremendous precedent for future test takers in the state.

Lanny Fly, who left the board in 1997, stands out for tireless dedication, having served on the board in one capacity or another, including a term as President, since 1986.

No list of this kind would be complete without recognizing the great contributions of Larry Boyette, LMFT (License Number 1!), who led the fight for licensure and worked virtually single-handedly on the licensing board to establish MFT regulations, and of Maurice Graham and Eric Scalise, who have taken over from Larry on the licensing board now that he has moved to Georgia. While much of such service is invariably thankless, all of us should find time to say a large thanks for their work.

Finally, David Bailey, VAMFT's lobbyist for many years, has far exceeded the bounds of mere contractual agreements in his efforts on our behalf. He has represented VAMFT in exemplary fashion, and made real personal sacrifices to do so. We are all in his debt.

Let me also thank generally those countless people whose names I have not mentioned, but who by board service or phone calls or lobbying or networking with their colleagues, or voting in elections, have helped advance our work.

It is also a time to say goodbye to several friends who we have recently lost. Jim Consoli, mentioned above; Jarle Brors, a Northern Vice President, and Leo Howard, Southwest Vice President, all died in 1997. With others unknown to us who may have departed, they will be deeply missed.

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Virginia Gives National MFT Exam

The National MFT exam was administered by the Professional Exam Service and sponsored by the VAMFT Board for the first time in Virginia on November 14, 1997. Virginians gave an excellent performance, exceeding the national average both in rate of persons passing and average score. Congratulations to all!! All future exams for the MFT license in Virginia will be sponsored by the Board of Licensed Professional Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists and Substance Abuse Professionals. Please make all inquiries about future exams and all licensing requirements to that board in Richmond.

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