COAMFTE vs. CACREP vs. WASC - What is Accreditation?
For most people, “accreditation” connotes official-ness. You often hear “fully accredited” in advertisements for programs and it seems to be used to imply that this program is for real, and not a scam.
But is that true? What is accreditation? Do you need to attend an accredited MFT program? Aren’t all real MFT programs accredited?? How could a school even operate without accreditation???
Let’s talk about accreditation and why it might be important for you.
What is accreditation?
I feel like we may as well allow the elephant in the room to speak for itself, since most prospective applicants I talk to are wondering about COAMFTE accreditation (which, btw, I have most often heard pronounced as “co-AMPH-teee”). This is how COAMFTE defines accreditation as it relates to MFT programs:
Accreditation is a public service that aims to: a) improve the quality of educational programs in marriage and family therapy; b) encourage programs' ongoing self-evaluation, development, and improvement; and c) serve as an indicator that programs continually evaluate themselves in relation to their institution’s and program’s mission, and meet established standards as measured by their own stated goals, educational objectives and established outcomes.
I don’t know about you, but it took a few readings of that paragraph for me to begin to get an understanding of what they really mean. It sure sounds like accreditation is a quality control measure, and a program that successfully gets accreditation is getting a stamp of approval in terms of quality! But is that true?
If we break it down, it sounds like COAMFTE certainly wants to “improve the quality” of MFT programs. However, there’s not really a field-wide consensus on what that means. Does a high-quality program get you certified in specific evidence-based treatments? Does a high-quality program have a low student/teacher ratio? Does a high-quality program make you a better clinician, or do they just prepare you to pass the licensing exam?
ACCREDITATION STANDARDS
COAMFTE has a lot of ideas about what makes a high quality program, and that’s what goes into their accreditation standards, a set of hoops that programs must jump through to get the coveted COAMFTE accreditation. But the truth is, there’s a lot of debate on what makes a high quality program, and some in the field disagree with COAMFTE’s conclusions. For example, COAMFTE requires that programs have a very specific hour requirement for students—while in graduate school, students need to get 500 clinical hours, and at least 200 of those must be “relational”
(therapy with more than one person, and the clients must be in a family system of some kind). They think that results in a more competent therapist. However, there is no consensus that more clinical hours directly translates to better clinicians, and there’s no consensus that requiring relational hours while in graduate school results in better MFTs. It might seem like a good idea? But the state of California doesn’t think it’s necessary—all they require is that students collect 225 clinical hours while in graduate school with no requirements at all for relational hours. So California doesn’t care if you graduate having only done therapy with individual adults!
A colleague of mine who was a professor at a highly respected institution told me that his program deliberately decided NOT to pursue COAMFTE accreditation for this exact reason. The extra hours and the relational-hours requirement mean students are in school longer (and pay more in tuition) AND it’s harder to find a field placement that can accommodate the requirement for relational hours. In that program’s opinion, the COAMFTE requirements create barriers for entry to the field that contribute to the access problem our field has—because of the school and licensure requirements to become an MFT, many who have the privilege to enter the field often have the financial resources and other support networks to make it possible.
So why would any program seek accreditation? I think there are two main reasons. On the one hand, some educators truly believe that COAMFTE’s standards are the field’s best bet at producing “competent MFTs,” whatever that means to them. The COAMFTE standards tend to represent a “pure” approach to MFT (as opposed to other fields that do psychotherapy, like counseling and social work). But the other main reason, I think, has to do with what started this whole blog post in the first place—a lot of students are looking for signals that a program is a “good” program, since US News & World Report doesn’t rank MFT programs, and accreditation is one of the very few signals that can be interpreted to suggest a program is a “better” program. So I think programs pursue COAMFTE-accreditation to be more competitive to prospective students. But as I hope you know now…COAMFTE-accreditation does not exactly mean it’s a “better” program.
What’s the difference between COAMFTE vs. CACREP vs. WASC etc??
You’ll notice that COAMFTE isn’t the only game in town as far as accreditation is concerned, but it is the rarest, which gives the impression that it’s something special. Let’s start with the big picture.
Institutions get accredited, and this is generally pretty important, because it DOES mean that some group has determined that this school is indeed an institution of higher education. WASC is an accreditation that falls into this category—entire schools get WASC-accredited. So, for example, the university I attended to get my master’s degree (California State University, Northridge, or CSUN) does have WASC accreditation. You generally don’t need to really worry about this at all unless you’re thinking about attending a brand-new or very tiny school—then you should double-check to make sure they have some sort of approval by SOMEONE to do business as a university.
So let’s narrow the focus a little. COAMFTE (and it’s cousin CACREP) are program-specific accreditations. That means, for example, that the MFT program at CSUN is COAMFTE-accredited, but the Social Work program is not. COAMFTE is ONLY for MFT programs. CACREP is the accreditation that is usually for counseling programs, but because of a lot of historical/bureaucratic/administrative reasons I won’t get into, a lot of MFT programs in California got CACREP accreditation instead of COAMFTE accreditation. So CSUN’s MFT program, for example, had CACREP accreditation for many years until the director of the program decided to apply for COAMFTe accreditation.
For those of you applying to MFT programs in California, that’s basically what you need to know about this somewhat arcane topic. You could learn a lot more if you want to Google for awhile, but I’m warning you…it gets boring fast. For now, let’s move on to the big question:
Should I care about MFT program accreditation?
You should care about accreditation for one of two reasons:
You are an MFT educator and you’re in charge of an MFT program and you have a dedication to making sure your curriculum creates the most MFT-y MFTs theoretically possible.
You want to become an MFT and you think there’s a chance that at some point in the future you might want to be an MFT in a state OTHER than California.
Wait…what?
Yeah I know. That came out of nowhere right?
What does accreditation have to do with moving away from California? Quite a lot!
GRADUATING FROM A CALIFORNIA MFT PROGRAM BUT GETTING A LICENSE IN A DIFFERENT STATE
So, the regulatory body that controls MFT licensing in California is the Board of Behavioral Science, affectionately referred to as the BBS. The BBS sets the state’s standards for licensure, which means they get to pick what hoops people have to jump through to become an MFT licensed in the state of California.
The BBS has decided they really don’t care if your program was COAMFTE-accredited. In fact, they don’t care if your program was accredited AT ALL! If it wasn’t accredited, it just needs to have been approved by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE). You can read the full legal requirements for MFT-degree-granting programs in California here.
However, other states have other requirements. Many states will say that MFTs in their state must have graduated from a COAMFTE or equivalent program, which means you have to provide a bunch of paperwork to demonstrate that your non-COAMFTE-accredited program was the equivalent of one. Others, however, are more difficult.
I wish I had the time and resources to compile for you a comprehensive catalog of all requirements for all 50 states, but we’ll use one example to demonstrate why this is pretty impossible. Take Florida, for example. According to their requirements to apply for an MFT license in Florida, you MUST have graduated from a COAMFTE-accredited program UNLESS you have practiced fully-licensed without problems in another state for at least 3 out of the past 5 years—this is called “applying by endorsement,” and the COAMFTE requirement doesn’t apply.
So, if you attend an MFT program in California that does NOT have COAMFTE accreditation, you cannot move to Florida right after graduation and continue the licensing process there. You must complete the licensure process in California (or another state that doesn’t care about COAMFTE), which can take anywhere from 2-6+ years. Then, once you’re fully-licensed in that state, you have to practice for at least 3 years without getting in trouble with the board before you can move to Florida and get an MFT license there.
If you graduate from a COAMFTE-accredited program, the whole process is a lot easier.
Summing It All Up
Bottom line, COAMFTE-accreditation mostly matters if you’re going to want to get licensed in another state. If you know right now which state you might be interested in, find that state’s licensing board on this list, look at the requirements, and see if/how COAMFTE-accreditation will impact your decision. If you want to keep your options open and want to save yourself as much trouble as possible, COAMFTE-accreditation is probably something to consider. But if you feel really certain that you’re gonna be in California for a long time, it probably doesn’t need to be a dealbreaker for you.
Now, if you’re looking for help in figuring out if a program is a high-quality program, or you’re trying to figure out what’s the best MFT program in California, check out this webinar I did with Tony Rousmaniere of Sentio Institute for our advice on how to discern the quality of an MFT program. I hope it helps!
