The Rehabilitation Counseling Coalition (RCC) met this weekend for our semi-annual meeting at Wright State University. Lynne Tracy, Katherine Dunlap and Bob Paré were present representing IARP.
In addition to members of the RCC from other rehabilitation counseling associations, RCC’s affiliate members Frank Lane, Executive Director and Patty Nunez, President of CORE were present, as was Cindy Chapman, Executive Director of CRCC.
We were fortunate to be the first group CORE addressed to discuss CORE’s merger with CACREP, which will take effect on July 1, 2017. As of June 30, 2017, CORE will cease to exist and all current CORE accredited graduate programs will continue to be accredited by CACREP. In the next two years, CORE will be working on the transition including the standards review and revision for graduate rehab counseling programs and to align the CORE standards with those of CACREP.
Essentially, we learned that CORE’s impetus to merge with CACREP came down to a business decision. The CORE Board feels strongly that they obtained the best possible agreements with CACREP to insure the furtherance of the rehabilitation counseling profession.
The RCC was advised that CORE will seek a ‘home’ for the undergraduate rehabilitation counseling programs as CACREP does not accredit undergraduate programs. CACREP has agreed to accredit doctoral rehabilitation counseling-related programs for a period of two years. There will be two separate seats on the CACREP Board starting July 1, 2017, one representing vocational rehabilitation counseling and the other for the new clinical rehabilitation counseling specialty. The distinction between the ‘vocational’ rehabilitation counseling programs and the clinical rehabilitation counseling specialty is that the latter focuses on providing mental health counseling to individuals with disabilities. It was also agreed that CACREP would infuse disability into the curriculum across all counseling areas.
The RCC has asked CORE in the next two years to address several issues and requests. We will be providing further details in the near future. Further, CORE Executive Director Frank Lane has agreed to present to our membership on the merger and to answer questions soon through IARP’s online platform. Details are forthcoming.
The RCC spent a lot of time this last weekend wrestling with the merger and the ultimate effects. What we came down to was our vision of vocational rehabilitation counseling: the profession must emerge stronger than ever as the discipline that serves, counsels and in some instances, advocates for individuals with disabilities.
As such, the RCC felt is was important to focus on our scope of practice and how to protect that SOP. A task force will be looking at the SOP as stated on CRCC’s website as well as another work product defined during the 20/20 talks. We will pass this along to you all for comment in the next few months.
The RCC is preparing a statement to release about the CORE/CACREP merger and the future of our profession. This will be a great jumping off point to begin the discussion. Katherine Dunlap, Elizabeth Skyles and Lynne Tracy as members of the RCC will be holding a town hall meeting at the IARP Conference in New Orleans on Friday, October 23 from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. This will also be a great opportunity to dialog with all of you.
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Lynne Tracy
Vocational Counselor
lynnetracy@sbcglobal.net
Calabasas, CA United States
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