Ohio Marriage and Family Therapists Continuing Education Requirements and License Renewals

Ohio-licensed marriage and family therapists have a license renewal every two dates with a date of issue deadline. Thirty hours of continuing education are required in order to renew a license, and there are fifteen hours allowed from online CE courses if board approved. Three hours of ethics are required at each renewal.

Professional Development Resources is approved as a provider of continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB Provider #1046, ACE Program); by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC Provider #5590); by the American Psychological Association (APA); and by the *Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage & Family Therapist Board (Provider #RCST100501). *Ohio MFTs: check CE accreditation statement for specific course approval – if Ohio is not listed, the course is not approved.

Continuing Education Courses for Marriage and Family Therapists:

Improving Cultural Competence in Substance Abuse Treatment is a 4-hour online CE course. Culture is a primary force in the creation of a person’s identity. Counselors who are culturally competent are better able to understand and respect their clients’ identities and related cultural ways of life. This course proposes strategies to engage clients of diverse racial and ethnic groups (who can have very different life experiences, values, and traditions) in treatment. The major racial and ethnic groups in the United States covered in this course are African Americans, Asian Americans (including Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders), Latinos, Native Americans (i.e., Alaska Natives and American Indians), and White Americans. In addition to providing epidemiological data on each group, the course discusses salient aspects of treatment for these racial/ethnic groups, drawing on clinical and research literature. While the primary focus of this course is on substance abuse treatment, the information and strategies given are equally relevant to all types of health and mental health treatment.
From Contention to Contemplation: Overcoming Core Impasses in Couples Therapy is a 1-hour online video CE course. Many couples come to therapy emotionally disconnected from each other, polarized by a constant state of struggle and unable to see past the last fight. Couples often engage in a repetitive cycle of interaction, resulting in their feeling stuck and hopeless. Once this reciprocal pattern can be identified, couples can be empowered to break the pattern and learn new ways of relating to one another that better satisfies their needs. The purpose of this course is to train therapists to conduct a strength-based assessment and identify those dynamics in a couple’s interaction that serve to perpetuate unsatisfactory relationship patterns. Therapeutic techniques discussed include diagramming a couple’s vulnerability cycle using pictorial representations and facilitating new patterns by identifying the partners’ beliefs and core premises and providing training in retroactive analysis of conflictual interactions.
Bullying Prevention: Raising Strong Kids by Responding to Hurtful & Harmful Behavior is a 3-hour online video CE course. This video course starts with a thoughtful definition of “bullying” and goes on to illustrate the functional roles of the three participant groups: the targeted individuals, the bullies, and the bystanders. The speaker discusses the concepts of resiliency, empathy, and growth/fixed mindsets, and considers the pros and cons of alternative responses to harmful behavior. Included also are an examination of the utility of zero tolerance policies and a variety of adult responses when becoming aware of bullying behavior. The speaker utilizes multiple examples and scenarios to propose strategies and techniques intended to offer connection, support and reframing to targeted individuals, motivation to change in the form of progressive, escalating consequences to bullies, and multiple intervention options to bystanders. Further segments discuss ways in which schools can create safe, pro-social climates.

Information gathered from the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Board on May 22, 2015.