I strongly support this petition for a number of reasons. 

When I entered a Master's of Clinical Psychology program in 2008, I had no idea that I would be turned down for an LPC due to the distinction between counseling and psychology. Previous graduates from my university had been LPC-eligible for many years. When I learned about the changes in 2009, in the middle of my Master's program, I had to quickly decide what I wanted to do and rethink my career path. My original plan was to be licensed after obtaining my Master's; however, since that was no longer an option, I decided to finish my Master's program and was accepted into a Counseling Psychology doctoral program. 

Some of my classmates, though, did not want to pursue a doctorate and were suddenly left stranded – their career plan dissolved right before their eyes without any warning. A number of students that I know, having already completed a Master's in Clinical Psychology, now had to apply and be accepted into a Counseling program, if they wanted to still be LPC-eligible in the state of Virginia – racking up more student loans and debt and making personal and professional sacrifices. Besides the financial and personal constraints this change unnecessarily placed on students, it also impacts those in need of mental health services. This change in licensing regulations suddenly prevented Virginia from obtaining a number of clinicians able to provide services – instead, these individuals had to go back to school and delay providing services even longer. 

I have a number of concerns about the change in licensing requirements. I'm confused about how and why this change occurred so quickly. Why were previous clinical grads eligible for LPC and then suddenly no longer eligible? Did the ethical standards change or was it something else? Were students from clinical programs not competent to provide counseling services? Were clinical grads performing worse on licensing examinations?  Basically, what changed and why was the change so sudden? This swift and quick change had a MAJOR impact on students entering programs in 2008 and 2009. It would have been much more manageable on many of us, had we been given some notice that changes would be occurring in the future. 

I also know that some programs have made many changes to remediate the perceived problems, but to my knowledge, no one has applied for an LPC since programmatic changes to serve as a test case. I would encourage the board to publicly post their criteria so all programs will have a clear idea of whether they a) meet the criteria, b) are still in need of remediation, or c) can never be eligible due to some unchangeable aspect of their program. If the board does not do this, many students will unfortunately continue to waste their time, effort, and money entering a graduate program with the hopes that it will provide them with the educational requirements necessary to ultimately apply for the LPC.  

In my program, I know at least 10 people who were negatively impacted by these changes – financially, professionally, and personally. People were forced to go back to school, obtain another Master's, or completely switch career paths because more student debt was not feasible for them. It seems unfair to me, that these students were deprived of the career they trained for, and that Virginians were deprived of service from well-trained, ethical, competent professionals.