Counseling Continuing Education Requirements

State by state you’ll see a different set of requirements. Counseling continuing education credits are required in each state for you to continue to be certified and practice in the state of your choosing. You have to first know what is expected of you before you can know what you need to take and how you need to go about getting the units you need.

To find out what the counseling continuing education requirements for your state are you can simply go online. By doing a quick search with your state as part of the search parameters you can find your states website. On here it will list the amount of hours that you must have plus any other requirements. Some states require that counselors that specialize in a certain area have a certain number of class hours in that field to maintain their certification. They will also have how you need to go about submitting your certificate of completion to them.

Once you know what is required by the state you can start finding your classes in counseling continuing education. With technology like it is today, it is much easier to simply go online and take a class or two. This means that you can do the classes in your free time rather than try to schedule around a class or seminar. It has become a convenient way for people to get the CEUs that they need to maintain their certification. Before you enroll in the classes though you need to do a little more research, you need to know that the classes are accredited and that your state will accept them. It doesn’t take but a couple of minutes to check out the company you are considering taking your CEUs from. It’ll save you a headache later should the company not be accredited.

You will often have to print out and submit a certificate showing that you completed your counseling continuing education classes. Your state office should have a way for you to do this electronically, but quite often you will have to have the paper copy available as well. You should check with the state office to ensure you are submitting the information to the correctly so that you get credit for the CEUs that you have taken and so, should an audit come up, you are completely covered. Often times in order to keep your license you may have to present proof at the time of renewal as well, so it’s important to have all the paperwork handy.

Counseling continuing education is important. It’s the best way to keep abreast of all the changes in your field. By making sure you follow your states requirements on obtaining CEUs and submitting proof that you have indeed followed through with the class you can keep working without interruption.