TPC-Journal-V2-Issue2

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 2 128 areas within counseling itself (e.g., school counseling, marriage and family counseling, student affairs and college counseling, career counseling). There may be several reasons why those entities that set the educational standards for their professions have been reluctant to create a set of specialty standards and/or to mandate the inclusion of core curricular experiences related to addictions. Whereas a full discussion of these reasons is beyond the scope of this article (for a detailed description, see Hagedorn, 2009c), some reasons may include (a) the lack of established diagnostic criteria for disorders related to behaviors or processes (e.g., sex, the Internet, gaming); (b) the lack of consensus as to the interconnectedness of addiction and other presenting concerns; and/or (c) the belief that addictions, and the problems they cause, are the treatment responsibility of those who have traditionally been prepared to address them. In response to these areas of potential “push back” from some in the field, there is evidence in the professional literature that (a) diagnostic criteria for process addictions are on their way into the treatment community, (b) the research shows a clear connection between addiction and other concerns, and (c) addiction, and its associated problems, will impact all clinicians regardless of their scope of practice (Hagedorn, 2009c; Kafka, 2010; Robertson, 2006). Potentially, an additional reason why accrediting bodies may have steered clear of establishing addiction-related standards across the curriculum may be the belief that those who work with addicted clients (and/or those affected by addicted individuals) will obtain the necessary competencies through on-the-job training or through training seminars, workshops, and professional conferences. As noted earlier, the problem with such expectations is that (a) this necessitates that counselors be proactive and motivated to seek out such opportunities, (b) credit for such endeavors is granted by simple attendance at such events (rather than as a result of a formal evaluation of knowledge and/or skills as would be found in an educational institution), (c) there is no way to determine the accuracy, timeliness, or quality of the content presented by such delivery methods, and (d) not all counselors will attend the same seminar, resulting in a variety of competency levels (Hagedorn, 2009b; Mustaine, West, & Wyrick, 2003). Clearly, a more standardized delivery method will result in more comparably trained counselors to work with those people impacted by addictive disorders. Having set the stage for the historical need for educational standards related to counseling those impacted by addictive disorders, we now turn to the direct impact that CACREP has had on the emergence of such standards. Beginning with an introduction to the atmosphere that precipitated the creation of these standards, we will follow with a description of the procedures undertaken by CACREP to ensure the integrity and quality of the creation and revision processes. We then conclude with a brief review of the implications of these standards for the counseling profession and a call for empirical research to substantiate the impacts of a trained and prepared cadre of professional counselors on the lives of addicted clients and their families. The Impact of CACREP on the Practice of Addiction Counseling In moving forward with the development of the 2009 CACREP Standards, the CACREP Board (“the Board”) and the CACREP Standards Revision Committee (SRC; a committee external to the Board, charged with overseeing the revision process and presenting standards for consideration and adoption by the Board) were very intentional about maintaining those procedures dedicated to the highest quality of output while remaining open to its constituents. Preserving a transparent agenda, the SRC and the Board began the revision process with a scan of the counselor education horizon as it related specifically to the addiction counseling standards. Watching the Horizon Four factors helped trigger the decision to proceed with the drafting of a specific set of addiction counseling standards. First, as noted earlier, there had been a consistent call from the counseling literature for CACREP to establish a set of standards related to addiction counseling (Diaz, 2008; Hagedorn, 2009c; Morgan & Toloczko, 1997; Salyers, Ritchie, Cochrane, & Roseman, 2006; Whittinghill, 2006; Whittinghill, Carroll, & Morgan, 2004). Second, on a national scope, two events were occurring: (a) states continued to move toward the mandate of a master’s degree for addiction counselors and (b) there were a number of non-accredited addiction counseling programs that existed alongside CACREP-accredited programs in community or mental health counseling (Hagedorn, 2006; Salyers, et al., 2006). Third, the International