Certifications and Training for Online Counselors

You may be curious about counseling certifications foronline counseling? Well, there are a few that you should consider, and here,we’ll go over what kind of certifications online counselors need before theycan help others.

The Same as Offline

If you’re wondering whether or not things are differentoffline than online, the answer is no. You need the same kind of training andcertifications for online as offline.

In fact, online counseling in some places requires you tohave 15 hours of training on the software that’s used for online counseling.

It is an attractive career to some people who are curiousabout it, but it isn’t just the decision to be a counselor and you’re done. Youneed proper certification from the different institutions either online oroffline to become a counselor online.

So if you do already have a certification or degree, thengreat.  You can become an onlinecounselor provided you have the right kind of training under your belt tohandle an online workspace as well.

How to Become an Online Marriage Counselor

An online marriage counselor does have the same trainingas those who are offline.

This is regulated by the same agencies such as theAmerican Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. That means, to work evenas an online family or marriage therapist, you will need a graduate degree infamily therapy and marriage therapy, and also a master in psychology or arelated area from a school which is accredited.

The beauty of this is you can do a bunch of this onlinethese days. Remote learning for counseling degrees is possible, but you willstill need to do practicals before you begin to work as a full-fledgedcounselor.

After you get your degree, you will need anywhere from2000-4000 hours of supervised education that is clinical, and from there, passthe certification exams for the areas that they work in.

Every state is different with their licensing requirementsthough. However, you do need to be licensed to work online, and you can getinto valuable educational programs and licensing in order to achieve the degreethat you want.

Minimally a Master’s Degree

Minimally, you need a maters in counseling.  You can at that point also determine thespecialty and preference before you apply to help you choose the best career.In order to get your master’s degree, you will need to of course study and dothe courses, and then later on, also do the licensing to help make sure you area qualified counselor.

There are some graduate career programs that will help youget additional certifications too, and you of course can also add onlinetraining for therapy, but also clinical psychology and social work.

You also may want to, at this point, figure out what typeof counseling you want to do. Do you prefer to work with couples? Maybe a couplestherapist is what you  should pursue. Ifyou want to work with more at-risk youth, you can become a teen and adolescentcounselor.  You also may want to help theLGBTQ community, so becoming a therapists that specializes in this is a goodidea.

From there, once you finish the degree, you can of coursework as an intern where you need to spend time working with the people, andthis will help you become a licensed counselor.

Certifications to Consider

There are a few types of counseling certifications toconsider if you’re looking into this.

First, you have the certified mental healthcounselor.  You of course need tocomplete the diagnosis and treatment, couples or family counseling, andadvanced levels of clinical skills. This allows for you to work as a counselorfor you to help a variety of patients. You do need to have a passing grade onthe national clinical mental health counseling examination before you can earnthis.

You also have the national certified counselor. These ofcourse are people who meet the standards for the experience, education, exams,and ethics of this too. This can also help you secure liability insurance, andyou will benefit as well from the advocacy of counselors who are nationallycertified.

If you plan on being a substance abuse counselor, you willneed to be a master addiction counselor to achieve that certification. This ofcourse means that you have the training and the experience that is needed tohandle addiction counseling.  You canapply as a professional by going to the US department of Transportation.

These types of certifications are those you can consider,and all of these are good ones if you’re looking to be a counselor online.

For the most part, the process is relatively the same. Youneed the right coursework, the clinical experience, and of course, you need topass one of these exams.

Some people can get these with just a bachelor’s degree,but other ones require much higher education.

Some of these courses also may require students tocomplete this in just 20 credit hours, but others may require more of this. Thebest way for you to decide what you need is to do the research, and have a planof how much you need to do to earn a degree.

So how long does this take? It really all depends. Somepeople may take years to reach this, while others, if they just spend all oftheir time on this, may do it in a fraction of the time. If you already havethe degree and the time put in, you need to just show that you have therequirements for eligibility. But this is something that is possible to do on apart-time schedule, however it does take significantly longer like this.

A degree in counseling is a great thing for plentyof people to utilize and benefit from. Hopefully this article showed youexactly what it is that you need to do, and the training necessary to be acounselor online.