MINUTES
Board of Directors Meeting
April 29, 2005
Present: Jim Kinyon, Grace Mims, Woody Schrenk, Rick Ostrander, Dave Johnson, Brett Koenecke, Jim Carlon, Pat Archer, Ann Marie Rossing, and Joyce Vos.
Call to order at 8:29a.m.
M/S/P Mims/Schrenk to nominate Dave Johnson as President. M/S/P Schrenk/Mims to cease nominations. Vote passed unanimously. Ostrander turned the meeting over to Johnson.
M/S/P Ostrander/Kinyon to nominate Schrenk as Vice President. Koenecke motioned to cast a unanimous ballet. Motioned carried.
M/S/P Schrenk/Kinyon to move into Executive Session at 8:35a.m.
M/S/P Ostrander/Kinyon to move into General Session at 11a.m.
The Board visited with Kerry Schmitzer about her LPC application. Of issue was the 1:20 ratio of supervision hours to counseling experience hours. After her departure, M/S/P Schrenk/Ostrander to move back into Executive Session at 11:27a.m.
M/S/P Koenecke/Kinyon to move into General Session at 12:10p.m.
The Agenda was reviewed. The Board was directed to move the management contract discussion into General Session. Staff added agenda items 10d and e.
The management contract was discussed. M/S/P Mims/Kinyon to accept the proposed contract as presented.
1. M/S/P Ostrander/Schrenk to approve the February 4, 2005 Minutes with the correction of the word evaluate instead of evaluation on page two, item number three.
3. Staff updated the Board on HB 1212, proposed and now signed by the Governor. Two specific items that affect the Board is the elimination of the marriage and family Advisory Committee and the addition of two more board members. Staff noted she did not request the removal of the Advisory Committee. She did request the addition of board members, but had requested practitioners to assist with reviewing complaints, not more lay members.
4. M/S/P Koenecke/Ostrander to have Mary Rogers (Workshop Director) provide the continuing education support information as if she had requested Board approval. If it meets our requirements, have Theresa Jones pay the $25 sponsor fee and post-approve it for her continuing ed hours.
2. Secretary Oldenkamp joined the board meeting at this time. The Board asked her to briefly describe what she thought were the primary issues with our 2005 proposed HB1062. She thought it was because we didn’t have a consensus for a Grandfathering clause, we were struggling with the exemption of all “clergy,” and our concept of developing a Registry for non-licensed practitioners was unfamiliar to legislators - no precedence for them to consider.
She suggested if we had an association sponsor the Bill, we would avoid the executive branch’s involvement.
Together, we identified the key players in making this a successful Bill: the mental health-related associations, the ministerial association, and as many individual unlicensed practitioners as possible.
In other matters, Secretary Oldenkamp reminded us July 1 is the effective date for the board members to increase from seven to nine, and she would take suggestions for those lay members positions. She suggested we be mindful of the State’s Open Meeting law due to some recent incidences in the State.
On the subject of our proposed Administrative Rules, she understood we were anxious to get them in place and her Staff was nearing the end of their review. She stated that her only concern was our proposed fee increases, the Governor’s stand on increases, and whether we could support the fiscal impact. We discussed the tight budget and need for funds in order to operate. We were surprised to learn from this Department that we could spend down our reserves to one year’s operating budget. We had always been previously advised not to spend the reserves. She suggested the Board discuss it and let her Staff know if we will remove the fee increases. Thereafter, the Rules should be ready for the filing process. At this time, the Secretary left the meeting.
M/S/P Ostrander/Koenecke to remove the fee increases and move ahead with the Rules filing process.
It was decided that we will devote a good amount of time at our next meeting to openly discuss the practice law with members of the counseling associations and interested parties. Staff will notify them.
The concerns and implications in granting Kerry Schmitzer the LPC were discussed at length. M/S/P Ostrander/Koenecke to grant Kerry Schmitzer the LPC in light of the proposed Administrative Rules. The letter will be appropriately worded and drafted by Johnson, Carlon and Staff.
M/S/P Koenecke/Mims to close Case #2004-03 and notify counsel to send the follow-up letters.
Staff is to notify the counselor in Case #2001-06 that he met the approved supervisor requirement, the supervisor is to verify to the Board the requirement was met at the conclusion of the year, and to copy stipulation number two in order to let him know it’s suppose to read continuing education credit not “class”.
M/S/P Ostrander/Schrenk to direct counsel to send a letter to the counselor in Case #2004-06 indicating the dual relationship was an ethical violation and to refrain from this type of engagement again, that she complete 3 hours of CE specifically in child custody evaluations, and 3 hours of CE in ethics with a focus of dual relationships, all within the next 12 months, and upon successful completion of these stipulations the board can close the case.
5. After the discussion, it was agreed that an individual can qualify for both the LPC and LMFT at the same time if both standards are being met; specifically, the LMFT supervision requirements exceed the LPC requirements. The individual would still have to satisfy all the coursework and take both exams. Staff will notify Ryan Waltner of the Board’s response.
6. The AASCB Portability plan was briefly discussed. A motion was made by Schrenk to offer AASCB our Board’s endorsement of the plan, but the motion died for lack of a second. At this time, the Board members felt unprepared to make this commitment. Staff was directed to have it on the Agenda again for the next meeting.
7. Since many of the Board’s recent complaint cases center around child custody evaluations, home studies and the like, the Board has been discussing how we need guidelines to evaluate these complaints. The current ACA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice do not address the majority of the complaint issues. After the last board meeting, Mims found, and emailed us, numerous sources of “Child Custody Guidelines and Standards” developed by the APA, Am Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Assn of Family and Conciliation Courts, etc. Staff mentioned she recently spoke to Carol Tellinghausen with the SW board, and they too are receiving numerous complaints in this area, and struggle with reviewing the complaints. It was suggested that perhaps the Mental Health Coalition would take on a task of developing similar guidelines for counselors, social workers and psychologists (if they perform this service). Staff offered to contact Tellinghausen to encourage the SW board’s involvement in the development of guidelines, and to learn whether Psychologists do work in this area, and if so, to encourage their involvement as well.
10 a. Staff considered Porter’s request to attend the joint AAMFTRB / CLEAR conference in the Fall, but there wasn’t information on the conference to review. It was thought that perhaps the CLEAR conference isn’t necessary to attend every year, and perhaps other board members should attend the AAMFTRB. It will be decided later.
b. M/S/P Schrenk/Koenecke to accept Earl Witt’s request to switch his Plan from the LPC to the LMFT due to the supporting documentation.
c. M/S/P Schrenk/Ostrander to accept the Wyoming LPC as Allison Ritterbush’s LPC supervisor due to the supporting documentation.
d. M/S/P Koenecke/Ostrander to deny Karen Baukol’s request to receive continuing education credit for The International Fitness Profession Association program and Yogamotion because they don’t meet the counseling-related criteria for CE.
e. Johnson stated he heard that ACA was updating the Codes and directed Staff to do the research before finalizing the proposed Administrative Rules.
M/S/P Schrenk/Koenecke to adjourn the meeting at 3:40pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Joyce M. Vos
Executive Secretary