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Working shoulder-to-shoulder on behalf of California's
alcohol and other drug (AOD) counselors are, from left,
Warren Daniels III, former President of CAADAC, Susan
Blacksher, Executive Director of CAARR, and Mike Breining,
President of Breining Institute.
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SACRAMENTO, California (March 5, 2010) -
Collaborative efforts are not new to the three largest
addiction counselor certification agencies in California,
and these efforts are especially important now as the
profession faces a proposed comprehensive overhaul of the
counselor certification laws by the State of California
Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP).
"Because we serve the same general constituency of alcohol
and other drug counselors, some people have viewed our
agencies as competing against one another; but, really, we
are working together to make sure that counselors continue
to have choices in their respective career paths within the
addiction field," explains Susan Blacksher, Executive
Director of the California Association for Addiction
Recovery Resources (CAARR).
Current California law has established a uniform set of
standards, specified in State Regulations, for the
certification of alcohol and other drug (AOD) counselors
working in State-licensed facilities. The State ADP serves
as the centralized agency that enforces the certification
laws relating to registered and certified counselors, as
well as relating to the approval of the certification
agencies.
Before being approved as a certification agency by ADP, each
certifying organization was required to successfully earn
national accreditation through a comprehensive review,
including psychometric evaluation of their respective
testing procedures. Not all agencies that applied for
accreditation were successful, including at least one
nationally-recognized and long-time established
certification agency.
Of
the nine certification agencies eventually earning national
accreditation and approval from ADP to issue certifications
in California, each of the three largest - California
Association of Addiction Recovery Resources (CAARR),
California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
Counselors (CAADAC), and Breining Institute - has invested
over twenty years and significant monies in the development
and operation of training and certification systems that
have provided choices for addiction professionals in
California.
"The law in California
already mandates a uniform set of standards for the
certification of AOD counselors," offers Warren Daniels III,
former president of CAADAC and current Chair of its
foundation, the California Foundation for the Advancement of
Addiction Professionals. "Each of the State-approved and
nationally-accredited certifying organizations offer a
unique path to meet those standards, and those options for
the counselor should be maintained."
ADP proposed in Senate Bill 707 last year a comprehensive
overhaul of the AOD certification laws, that would eliminate
the existing certification agencies, take over the
certification process, and that would, by the State's own
estimates, require more than 18 new State employee positions
and over $2 million to get started. That bill died in the
Legislature earlier this year, but ADP has expressed its
intention to go forward with its proposal.
"We are working with ADP in the hopes of developing
legislation that takes advantage of the many years of
experience of the existing certifying organizations, gives
the State even stronger oversight and enforcement authority
over the certification process without dramatically
increasing the cost of certification to the AOD counselor,
and helps establish a State licensed AOD counselor authority
that will help professionalize and regulate the private
practitioner," explains Michael Breining, president of
Breining Institute. "We know that the ADP staff has in mind
that consumer protection is a primary consideration, and we
hope to help in strengthening those consumer safeguards
without unnecessarily increasing the cost of certification
and putting good counselors out of work."
ADP continues to solicit input for its proposed counselor
certification and licensure overhaul, and invites comments
to Tina Chiginsky, Deputy Director, Office of Legislative
and External Affairs, e-mail tchiginsky@adp.ca.gov.
For a look at the ADP current proposal (as of March 5,
2010), please visit ADP's web site at this link:
http://adp.ca.gov/legislation/pdf/SB_707_language.pdf

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