California MFT trainee hours requirements

Requirements

Supervision

• At least 1 supervision unit each week at each site.
• One unit is one hour of individual or triadic supervision, or two hours of group supervision, at the same site in the same week. Group units count only in whole blocks inside the week.
• No more than 6 hours of supervision count in a week.
• An average of at least one hour of direct supervisor contact for every five hours of direct clinical counseling performed each week in each setting (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4980.43.2(a)(2)).
• Supervision counts only in person or by live two-way video. Telephone supervision does not count. Video also depends on your supervisor determining it is appropriate and keeping records.
• Pre-degree hours count toward the LMFT 3,000 only within the pre-degree limits and only for weeks that meet the trainee rules: logged on the BBS weekly summary and signed, with a supervisor qualified for MFT trainees, enrolled in a practicum course while counseling clients, and with the supervision ratio met.

Time limits

• Hours count only after you complete 12 semester or 18 quarter units of graduate instruction.
• You must be enrolled in a practicum course to counsel clients. You may keep counseling during a lapse in enrollment of less than 90 calendar days that comes right after a practicum course and is followed by another practicum course or by completing the degree (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4980.42(c)).
• Hours must fall within the 6 years before you apply. Up to 500 hours of qualifying clinical experience in the required supervised practicum are exempt from this limit.

What Accrue checks

• Keeps pre-degree hours on their own ledger, as the board keeps them on separate weekly logs and Experience Verification forms.
• Caps pre-degree experience at 1,300 hours and counseling plus supervision at 750 hours.
• Tracks the 150 face-to-face counseling hours, in person or by video, and the combined 225 hours of counseling and client-centered advocacy for the qualifying degree.
• Checks each week at each site for 1 supervision unit. Hours at a site in a week without one are not credited.
• Counts supervision in units, never raw minutes: one hour of individual or triadic supervision, or two hours of group supervision in one week, is one unit at one site.
• Credits at most 6 hours of supervision a week and at most 40 hours of experience in any 7 consecutive days.
• Supervision logged by telephone, or with no modality, credits no hours or units and cannot meet a week's unit requirement.
• Credits one logged practicum hour to every ledger it fits, so the same hour can count here, on the LPCC practicum ledger and on your program ledger.
• Stops counting hours once they are more than 6 years old.
• Fills the BBS LMFT weekly log and in-state experience verification for the pre-degree phase, one supervisor and one setting per form.

What Accrue does not check

• Accrue does not check the one-to-five supervision average, because whether it is averaged within each week or across weeks is unresolved.
• Accrue does not check that you were enrolled in a practicum course while counseling clients, or the 90-day limit on a lapse in enrollment.
• Accrue does not apply the 500-hour qualifying practicum exemption from the 6-year limit.
• Trainee hours do not move into the LMFT ledger automatically. After the degree, you enter the pre-degree hours on the LMFT ledger yourself.
• Accrue does not fill in the number of supervised weeks, employer or supervisor attestations, required attachments or a supervisor signature on the BBS forms. Complete and check each form with your supervisor before you submit it.