Current Issues

The Student Support Act amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and creates matching grants of at least $1 million to states for allocation to local educational agencies so that additional school-based mental health and student service providers may be hired, thereby reducing the student-to-counseolr ratios in elementary and secondary schools.

ACA supports the Mental Health in Schools Act of 2013, which was introduced on January 31. It is designed to increase students’ access to mental-health services in schools by establishing a new grant program that supports collaboration between local education agencies and community based health and social service organizations focused on children and youth. Ask your Senators to sign on as co-sponsors to help build bi-partisan support.

Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the Senate to establish Medicare reimbursement of licensed professional counselors and marriage and family therapists. As with previous versions of the legislation, the “Seniors Mental Health Access Improvement Act of 2011,” S. 604, would cover only medically-necessary outpatient mental health services, and would reimburse licensed professional counselors and marriage and family therapists at the same reimbursement rates, and under the same terms and conditions, as clinical social workers.

The VA issued an occupational standard for “licensed professional mental health counselors” (LPMHCs) in September of 2010. The standard establishes LPMHCs at the same GS series levels of pay and responsibility as clinical social workers.

For many years, licensed professional counselors have been the only mental health service professionals required to operate under physician referral and supervision within the TRICARE program. Congress included language in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2011, which was signed into law in January, directing the Department of Defense to adopt regulations to allow counselors to practice independently.  The law gives the Department of Defense (DoD) until June 20th of this year to do this.

Many bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to variously amend, or alter, the main federal education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). It was last reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.  Congress has yet to take up comprehensive legislation to fully reauthorize the law.

Members of Congress have introduced several important pieces of legislation that would support credentialed school counselors. Lawmakers are working to get their bills' language inserted into the revised, or reauthorized, version of the main federal law on K-12 education, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left Behind or ESEA). Congress is expected to take up ESEA reauthorization in 2011.

On December 29, 2007, the President signed S. 2499 into law, extending the State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) program until March 2009. The “Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007,” provides enough funding for states to keep pace with inflation and maintain their current enrollment levels through 2009.