"A Professional Organization Dedicated to Quality Services for
Persons with Disabilities through Education and Research"

Dear Board Administrator and Board Members:

We are writing to you on behalf of the National Council on Rehabilitation Education (NCRE) with the endorsement of the Commission on Rehabilitation Counseling Certification (CRCC) and the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE). We would like to provide you important information regarding the qualifications presented by rehabilitation counselors seeking licensure. NCRE is a professional organization composed of educators and researchers who are dedicated to quality education for rehabilitation professionals that represents faculties at over 95 rehabilitation counselor education programs across the country. NCRE does not provide credentialing services but rather concerns itself with enhancing the quality of education and research in the field of rehabilitation and rehabilitation counseling.

Your Board frequently is called upon to deal with questions related to the qualifications of applicants for your state's license in counseling. We are providing you with information regarding our specialized area of counseling - rehabilitation counseling These practitioners hold qualifications that are equally valid for licensure, but not are not as well known as those of counseling or mental health counseling. However, a number of states already provide recognition of rehabilitation counseling specific qualifications through recognizing our examination and/or educational program accreditation as equivalent to those of general counseling. We would ask you to review this information to:

• accommodate the inclusion of the CRCC examination (CRCE) as an accepted examination and accreditation by CORE as an accepted counselor education program accreditation these qualifications in your regulations and application review if you do not already do so, and
• positively endorse these same qualifications when you respond to the American Association of State Counseling Boards' (AASCB) request for comments on the National Credential Registry for Portability that you recently received from AASCB.

We realize that your goal is to protect consumers from unqualified practitioners while providing consumer protection and choice through regulating all qualified professional counselors who practice in your jurisdiction. This task can be difficult given the

diversity of credentials presented to you. In all likelihood these applications also include those of professional rehabilitation counselors holding less familiar but equally valid qualifications. We have enclosed an informational portfolio that should assist you in dealing with these issues and that provides you with:

• General information about rehabilitation counseling that underscores that its foundational elements are based in the counseling profession (i.e., note the similarity of our scope of practice is and code of ethics);
• A copy of the motion recently passed by the American Counseling Association's (ACA) Governing Council and letter from the ACA's President documenting this fact. Note that it is the official position of ACA that rehabilitation counseling credentials should be considered as equivalent to those of general counseling for all credentialing matters;
• Information about the CRCE examination emphasizing the conjunctive scoring model that insures that counseling content is a foundational aspect of the examination; and
• Background information about CORE. CORE is currently revising its standards and should adopt the final revisions next month and you will be notified of the revised standards. These proposed standards should substantially improve the ease of understanding the equivalency of CORE standards to those of CACREP (e.g., curricular areas have been changed to better reflect the counseling-related content and terms).

We would be pleased to provide you with any additional information or answer any questions that would assist you. You can contact Dr. Vilia Tarvydas at vilia-tarvydas@uiowa.edu or (319) 337-6353.

Sincerely,

Vilia M. Tarvydas, Ph.D., LMHC, CRC
1st Vice President
National Council on Rehabilitation Education

Irmo Marini, Ph.D., CRC
Chairman
Commission on Rehablitation Counselor Certification

Dennis R. Maki, Ph.D., LMHC, NCC, CRC
President
Council on Rehabilitation Education