Amends TCA Title 4 and Title 63, Chapter 22, Part 1.

This bill revises provisions governing professional counselors, as follows: (1) Under present law, a professional counselor designated as a mental health service provider must have: (A) Completed a minimum of nine graduate semester hours of coursework specifically related to diagnosis, treatment, appraisal and assessment of mental disorders; and (B) Completed the two years of post-master's supervised experience required for licensure in a clinical setting that provides substantial opportunities to diagnose, treat, appraise and assess mental disorders. This bill revises the requirement in (A) to instead require that the person have completed coursework specifically related to the diagnosis, treatment, appraisal, and assessment of mental disorders; and revises (B) to refer to "postgraduate" instead of "post master's" experience. (2) Under present law, an applicant for a license as a professional counselor must, among other things, submit proof that the person: (A) Has obtained a minimum of 60 graduate hours in counseling or a closely related field and which includes a master's degree in counseling; and (B) Has completed a supervised field experience as either a practicum or internship that includes a minimum of 500 clock hours of training, at least 300 of which must be completed in a mental health or community agency setting. This field experience must be supervised by an individual with at least a master's degree in counseling, social work, psychology or psychiatry. This bill rewrites the above-described requirement to instead require proof that the person has completed a supervised field experience as either a practicum or internship. (3) Under present law, the applicant for licensure must also submit proof that the person has had at least two years of professional experience of a type judged to be acceptable by the board subsequent to being granted a master's degree. This bill changes the reference to "master's degree" to "graduate degree." (4) Under present law, a temporary license may be issued by the board for a licensed professional counselor designated as a mental health service provider applicant who has completed the academic coursework and training required for the license sought and who has successfully passed the examination required by the board. Present law provides that a temporary license remains valid until the board grants or denies the license application, a person may not be issued more than one temporary license, and a temporary license is valid for no more than three years. This bill rewrites these provisions to instead provide that a temporary license will remain valid for up to four years, the temporary license may be extended at the discretion of the board, and the applicant must notify the board and present supporting documentation demonstrating the satisfactory completion of the required postgraduate supervised experience in a clinical setting, at which time the board will grant or deny the license application based on satisfactory completion of all requirements for licensure. For the purpose of promulgating rules, this bill will take effect July 1, 2022. For all other purposes, this bill will take effect January 1, 2023. NOTE: SECTION 4 of this bill is a duplicate of SECTION 1. ON MARCH 24, 2022, THE SENATE ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1 AND PASSED SENATE BILL 2694, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #1 retains the present law requirement for an applicant for a license as a professional counselor having obtained a minimum of 60 graduate hours in counseling or a closely related field and which includes a master's degree in counseling; removes the repeated section of this bill (as noted above); and removes the provision of this bill that would have deleted the definition of "appraisal activities".