ACA Advocates for Professional Counseling at SAMHSA Workforce Development Meeting

ACA represented the counseling profession at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) behavioral health workforce meeting on April 23rd. SAMHSA is the lead Federal agency focusing on mental health and substance abuse counseling in the United States.

Convened and chaired by Pamela S. Hyde, SAMHSA Administrator, the purpose of the meeting was to solicit feedback from "a select group of national organizations representing the behavioral health professional guilds and other workforce development stakeholder groups" in order to help shape SAMHSA's behavioral health workforce strategic initiative.

The meeting focused on presentations and dialogue around the following questions: What do you anticipate the impact will be of health care reform on your constituency? What opportunities and barriers exist to expanding the workforce in the light of an aging workforce? and how can the workforce prepare to operate within the paradigm of recovery and evidence based thinking?

ACA's feedback focused on advocating for the use of professional counselors in the behavioral health workforce on par with other mental health professions. ACA also advocated for increased use of qualitative studies in the use of evidence based outcome protocols as a qualitative approach often provides the best data for the types of clients served by professional counselors.