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President Signs Landmark Bill Opening the Federal Government to Mental Health Counselors

By Whitney Meyerhoeffer posted 10-20-2020 14:30

  
On October 17, 2020, President Trump signed S. 785, which mandates the creation of a federal government classification for mental health counselors and pressures the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to increase its hiring of the profession. AMHCA is very proud of its leadership role in this tremendous success for the counseling profession. Passage of S. 785 is the most significant legislative accomplishment for mental health counselors since legislation to add the profession to the Minority Fellowship Program in 2011.

AMHCA Legislative Affairs consultant, @David Bergman, posted an #AdvocacyUpdates in the AMHCA community today. 

AMHCA lobbying firm, Bergman Strategies, LLC, worked closely with the lobbyist for the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to promote and protect the counseling and MFT language throughout the legislative process. S. 785 really started to gain steam when it passed the Senate on August 5, 2020. To supplement the effort, AMHCA and AAMFT/CAMFT collaborated with the House Veteran Affairs Committee (HVAC) to get a separate bill with only the counseling/MFT provisions introduced in the House. Representative Jahana Hayes (D-CT) took on this leadership role and introduced H.R. 8145 on September 1.

Read the entire update here: https://www.amhca.org/blogs/david-bergman1/2020/09/23/congress-passes-landmark-va-mental-health-counselo
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