TPC Journal V7, Issue 1-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 1 79 2016 Standards changes. On May 12, 2015, CACREP released the 2016 Standards, effective July 1, 2016. These standards are the product of a review process in which a Standards Revision Committee comprised of counselor educators from across the country examined if and how the CACREP Standards needed to be changed to meet the shifting needs of the counseling profession. They also focused on “simplifying, clarifying, and consolidating the existing standards” in their revisions (CACREP, 2012, para. 1). CACREP released the first draft of the 2016 Standards in September 2012 and allowed for public comment. They revised the Standards according to feedback, released the revised draft for further public comment, and revised the standards once more (Williams et al., 2012). The Standards Revision Committee then submitted a final Standards draft to the CACREP Board of Directors for adoption. It was adopted and released in May 2015 (CACREP, 2016b). The 2016 CACREP standards suggest more equitable education among the different counseling specializations with regard to the required number of credits a student must accrue in order to graduate (CACREP, 2015). For example, although the 2009 CACREP standards required that the addictions counseling, clinical mental health counseling, and marriage, couple, and family counseling programs had a minimum of 60 semester credit hours, the school counseling, career counseling, and student affairs and college counseling programs required only a minimum of 48 semester credit hours (CACREP, 2009). The proposed 2016 Standards, however, require that all degree programs have a minimum of 60 credit hours by 2020 (CACREP, 2015). In time, these changes aim to unify all counseling specializations (Williams et al., 2012). Such an increase in credits aligns with CACREP’s mission of developing standards that better the profession and affirm a unified identity (Bobby, 2013). When CACREP published proposed standard 1.J., requiring school counseling programs to have a minimum of 60 credit hours by 2020 (CACREP, 2015), debate arose. At the 2013 ACES School Counseling Interest Network meeting, counselor educators expressed concern about the proposed standard (Transforming School Counseling and College Access Interest Network [TSCCAIN], 2013). Some attendees asserted that mandating an increase to 60 credit hours would disenfranchise low- income students. Attendees argued that an increase in program costs and subsequently, tuition costs, could make counseling less practically desirable to otherwise qualified prospective students. Additionally, some counselor educators stated that increasing the number of credits for school counseling programs would place an undue burden on the training programs themselves by forcing these programs to hire more faculty members to teach additional courses. However, some counselor educators expressed support for the proposed credit hour increase, suggesting the standard could lead to higher quality applicants to school counseling programs and ultimately produce better qualified professionals in the field (TSCCAIN, 2013). Although concerns about the outcomes of transitioning to 60 credit hours are understandable, when compared to the gains that can be made by increasing credit hours, standard 1.J. appears warranted. Three pieces of evidence support this claim: existing research on credit hour increases, data from a pilot study, and anticipated benefits to the school counseling field. Existing Research To date, no research has explored the implications of changing school counseling credit hour requirements from 48 to 60; however, it is beneficial to explore other fields of study to understand trends, long-term effects and the manner in which other researchers have studied this topic. Previous studies either focused on non-counseling fields (T. K. Fagan, personal communication, November 1, 2014) or are in school counseling-related fields, but the research is significantly outdated (Barkley & Percy, 1984; Hollis, 1998).