Are Those "Last Minute" CEUs Approved?
Pictured above: a green checkmark in a wood frame on a gray background
With the December 31st deadline approaching, many Oklahoma LPCs, LMFTs, and LCSWs are looking for last minute CEUs.
In June of this year, the Oklahoma Board of Behavioral Health Licensure granted a stay of enforcement for the face-to-face continuing education requirement, meaning that Oklahoma LPC and LMFT practitioners would be allowed to count all technology-assisted or webinar courses as in-person CEUs until December 31, 2021. In addition, all LPC and LMFT ethics CEUs and annual supervision CEUs may be completed online until the December 31st deadline.
The Oklahoma Board of Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselors issued a similar ruling, allowing for LADCs to accrue all of their continuing education credits online until June 20, 2022.
Along with holiday gifts, therapists may find themselves searching for last-minute online courses to take before next week’s deadline.
When searching for webinars and other e-courses to take for continuing education, it is important to review the Board of Behavioral Health’s continuing education list to make sure the training is approved. The Board of Behavioral Health requires that all technology-assisted continuing education credits are approved by the Board in order for the credits to count towards licensure requirements.
Many of the "go to at the last minute" online CEU providers who have been helpful in the past may no longer be approved sources!
As of this article, no technology-assisted courses from FastCE.com and only 8 PESI courses are approved by the Board of Behavioral Health. It also appears as though the popular 10-credit hour TFCBT training by the Medical University of South Carolina is not listed on the OBBHL approved virtual CEU list. Clinicians may submit applications to have individual technology-assisted trainings approved by the Board, but being that the Board of Behavioral Health only approves courses at the bimonthly meeting, the course likely would not be evaluated until the February meeting at soonest.
Drug and alcohol counselors must also make sure that CEU providers or individual trainings are approved by the LADC Board before taking the course.
Though there are multiple PESI courses that are approved for continuing education on the OBLADC website, as of this article there are no approved courses for FastCE.com. Clinicians may submit individual courses for approval by the LADC board, but will be required to pay a fee for the application.
If a clinician is dually licensed, it is important to make sure that continuing education courses are approved by both licenses’ governing boards. For example, some Oklahoma university-sponsored courses are approved by the LADC board, but are not listed as approved virtual CEUs by the Board of Behavioral Health.
The Oklahoma Counseling Institute is an approved provider for the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Drug and Alcohol Counselors as well as for the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers, which means all of our continuing education courses are approved for LADC and LCSW clinicians. Likewise, every one of our technology-assisted continuing education courses are individually approved by the Oklahoma Board of Behavioral Health, which means LPC and LMFT clinicians can rest assured that our courses will count for CEUs. With many board-approved continuing education webinars—including 9 hours of ethics and 6 hours of supervision-- available on-demand in our catalogue, we are proud to provide quality, board-approved, evidenced-based training to Oklahoma mental health professionals.