20/20 Statement of Principles Advances the Profession

20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling is a major professional initiative co-sponsored by ACA and the American Association of State Counseling Boards (AASCB). Thirty counseling organizations are represented, including ACA, each ACA division and region, AASCB, CACREP, NBCC, Chi Sigma Iota (the national honor society in counseling), CRCC, and CORE. The goal is to proactively plan for the future of the profession of counseling over the next decade.

This past summer, the thirty organizational delegates promulgated and unanimously approved Principles for Unifying and Strengthening the Profession. This document sets seven basic principles for advancing our profession:

Principles

1. Sharing a common professional identity is critical for counselors.
2. Presenting ourselves as a unified profession has multiple benefits.
3. Working together to improve public perception of counseling and to advocate for professional issues will strengthen the profession.
4. Creating a portability system for licensure will benefit counselors and strengthen the counseling profession.
5. Expanding and promoting our research base is essential to the efficacy of professional counselors and to the public perception of the profession.
6. Focusing on students and prospective students is necessary to ensure the ongoing health of the counseling profession.
7. Promoting client welfare and advocating for the populations we serve is a primary focus of the counseling profession.

To date, 27 of the 30 participating organizations have endorsed the Principles for Unifying and Strengthening the Profession:

• AACE
• AADA
• AASCB
• ACA
• ACA Midwest Region
• ACA N. Atlantic Region
• ACA Southern Region
• ACA Western Region
• ACC
• ACCA
• ACEG
• ACES
• AMCD
• AMHCA
• ARCA
• ASERVIC
• CACREP
• C-AHEAD
• CORE
• CRCC
• CSI
• CSJ
• IAAOC
• IAMFC
• NBCC
• NCDA
• NECA

To date, 3 of the 30 participating organizations have not yet made a decision whether to endorse the Principles for Unifying and Strengthening the Profession:

• ALGBTIC
• ASCA
• ASGW

At this point there is a critical mass of organizations agreeing to the unifying principles for advancing the profession, and so the next step will be for the delegates to work on operationalizing those principles (e.g. developing a clear and agreed upon definition of counseling to the public; standardizing one licensure title across all states and licensing boards). Operationalizing the seven principles will be the focus of the in-person delegates meeting at the ACA conference in Charlotte on March 20^th. 20/20 works on a consensus model; any ideas promulgated in the next phase will need to be approved by a minimum of 90% of the delegates. Items that reach consensus will then be sent to all participating organizations for review and ratification.

Updated: 1/20/09