Hello,

We’re Alexandra Krens and Chloe Billy, two graduate students in the Virginia Tech counselor education program. We’re commenting on this as part of a project focused on advocacy and legislation in the counseling profession.

We saw this petition to alter the educational requirements for Qualified Mental Health Professionals (QMHPs) and we have some concerns.

In preparation for this comment, we spoke with a former QMHP-t, and she talked about often feeling unprepared to provide clients the care they needed, and that many QMHPs that she knew felt the same. Specifically, she talked about feeling ill-equipped to handle crisis situations. If a person like her, who has an undergraduate degree in psychology, feels she doesn’t have the education or knowledge to provide adequate care to clients, we should be increasing educational requirements, not decreasing them.

There are already several ways a person can become a QMHP, including being an occupational therapist or a nurse, which doesn’t require an educational background in mental health specifically, and provides a good way to allow people whose expertise comes mainly from experience, but still contains an educational component, to enter the field. We’re open to the idea of similar professions which still contain a mental health education component coming into the field, but don’t think that those without a background should be let in.

We are aware that part of the motivation for this is the labor shortage. To help with this, we suggest that the board consider starting a program or certification process specifically for QMHPs. This would allow more people to enter the field while ensuring that they are properly equipped to help clients.

Sincerely,

Alexandra Krens and Chloe Billy