Counselor law needs a facelift

The Washington state law that registers counselors needs a major overhaul because its low standards fail to protect clients.

To be a registered counselor, you pay a $40 fee and take a four-hour class in AIDS prevention. No education about counseling approaches; no ethics training; not even a high-school diploma. The lack of standards is astonishing. Yet, a person seeking therapeutic counseling might find reassurance in the "RC" after a registered counselor's name and erroneously assume he or she meets reasonable state standards of training and competence.

Many registered counselors may well provide a benefit to their clients, but the low bar also permits riffraff to pay their $40 admission to a profession with access to vulnerable people, and abuse them.

In an April series, "License to Harm," a Seattle Times investigation found more state-registered counselors had been accused of sexual misconduct than in any other health-care profession. Reporters found that over 10 years, 104 had been cited — more than doctors, dentists and nurses combined. Without any investigation, the state Department of Health dismissed about one-third of the nearly 1,500 complaints of sexual misconduct it had received over the same period.

Besides Maine, Washington is the only state that registers counselors with no relevant education or training. Washington has more than 17,500; Maine has about 200.

Instigated by Gov. Christine Gregoire in response to the series, the proposed reforms would create new categories of registered counselors with specific requirements for education, training and supervision.

Rep. Don Barlow, D-Spokane, introduced House Bill 1993, which would overhaul the profession and give those currently practicing a provisional registration and two years to prove they can meet the standards. If they don't, they lose their state credential.

The bill would require counselors who practice privately or in groups to have a bachelor's degree in psychology or another mental-health-counseling discipline and be supervised by a licensed therapist with a master's degree.

A different bill that would permit people with bachelor's degrees to practice without supervision should be abandoned.

The state's imprimatur should mean something. Currently, it does not and puts vulnerable people at risk. That must stop.