TPC Journal V8, Issue 1 - FULL ISSUE

32 The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 1 Standards Commission (2010) suggested accepting common standards of training and curricula for the counseling profession, such as those held by CACREP. The course structures of CACREP-accredited programs are more uniform and equivalent than non–CACREP-accredited programs (Mascari & Webber, 2013). Requiring uniform accreditation standards for a profession helps licensing boards by allowing for the accelerated review of licensure applications and a centralized way to measure minimum training criteria (Mascari & Webber, 2013). Graduates from CACREP-accredited programs more often follow board regulations and adhere to the state scope of practice for counselors (Mascari, 2004; Mascari & Webber, 2006). Studies have proposed positive relationships between accreditation and student performance on exams, certifications, and licensure, as these require understanding the history, values, and scope of practice of professional counselors (Milsom & Akos, 2007; Scott, 2001). Despite all of this, counselors are not clearly identifying as counselors in the profession of counseling. Further, government agencies look to accreditation standards to ensure consistency in training and skill sets. In 2010, both the U.S. Veteran’s Administration (VA) and the Institute of Medicine for the TRICARE system of the Department of Defense recognized clinical mental health counseling graduates from CACREP-accredited programs as qualified professionals to work in their organizations because of the combined unified identity and standardized educational preparation required by CACREP accreditation (Bobby, 2013). ACA, AASCB, and NBCC have identified CACREP as the accrediting body for the profession of counseling in an attempt to solidify counselor professional identity and equality with the other mental health professions. Three CACREP standards focus exclusively on counselor professional identity and are training requirements of clinical mental health counseling students. The following three sections explore CACREP 2016 Standard 1.x, Standard 2.1, and Standard 3.p to demonstrate how these standards attempt to address concerns with counselor professional identity. 1.x Counselors as Counselor Educators Counselor educators supervise students, model professional counseling behavior, monitor conduct, infuse ethics, and help students understand their scope of practice as counselors (Mascari & Webber, 2013). A 2008 study indicated that over 25% of counselor educators held other mental health licenses in addition to counseling, such as social work and psychology (Calley & Hawley, 2008). Counselor educators with multiple mental health licenses or without a mental health license can inhibit professional counselor identity development in counselor education students (Emerson, 2010; Mascari & Webber, 2006; Mellin et al., 2011). In these studies, master’s students reported feeling inadequate when individuals with other mental health licenses taught their classes, and gave students negative impressions of the profession of counseling. These negative impressions included a lowered perception of the value of counseling licenses and counselors’ counseling, research, and assessment abilities as compared to other mental health professions (Lincicome, 2015; Reisetter et al., 2004). Bobby and Urofsky (2011) stated: “We are not familiar with any other profession that chooses to defer the training of its future professionals primarily to a different profession” (p. 53). The suggestion is that counselor educators with a secure counselor professional identity better ensure an enduring counselor identity in master’s and doctoral students (Emerson, 2010). To strengthen counselor professional identity, CACREP accreditation requires core faculty members to have degrees specifically from counselor education programs, as well as hold professional memberships, certifications, and licenses within the profession of counseling (Bobby, 2013). Currently, CACREP standards do not require a specific length of time an individual must clinically counsel clients before becoming a counselor educator. Counselor educators abstaining from clinical counseling practice are not fully immersed in the profession of counseling. Therefore, they are not confronted with the need to thoroughly understand their role and scope of practice to communicate their professional counselor identity to others. Counselor educators would then find it difficult to help students