ACA’s government affairs team has been working to advocate for a bill brought before the DC City Council on LGBTQ cultural sensitivity training.
Last week, ACA’s Senior Director of the Center for Counseling Practice, Policy, and Research Lynn Linde, Ed. D., testified on behalf of ACA at a Committee Hearing on DC B21-168, the “LGBTQ Cultural Competency Continuing Education Amendment Act of 2015.” The bill specifies that two continuing education hours must be dedicated to LGBTQ sensitivity training out of the forty hours licensed counselors must complete every two years to stay in good standing with their license in DC.
Linde highlighted her experience as a counseling educator and the lack of course requirement and opportunity in counselor education’s inclusion of LGTBQ cultural sensitivity training. Her testimony also drew upon the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, the profession’s explicit prohibition against discrimination, and its commitment to helping all individuals to the best of one’s abilities. Additional training will provide counselors the tools to offer the best services to LGBTQ clients and help LGBTQ clients seek out and sustain the mental health care they may need.
To hear Linde’s testimony, click here (begins at 2: 10:27).
To read Linde’s testimony, click here.