Board committee begins multi-meeting review of LMFT education requirements; staff proposes consolidated framework

A preliminary framework to consolidate and clarify education requirements for licensed marriage and family therapists was presented to the Board of Behavioral Sciences Workforce Development Committee on Oct. 24, 2025.

The proposal, presented by Roseanne Helms, legislative manager for the board, would apply one unified set of qualifying-degree rules to all applicants regardless of where the degree was earned. The draft calls for a single integrated graduate degree (a 60-semester-unit/90-quarter standard, with a legacy allowance for pre-August 2012 48-unit degrees), a practicum requirement equal to six semester units of face-to-face counseling experience, and clearer remediation pathways that rely on graduate-level coursework rather than ad-hoc fixes.

The committee and staff said they intend the changes to preserve consumer protection while reducing unnecessary barriers and administrative complexity. "We want a clear, streamlined set of education requirements that's not vague or overly complex, that's fairly simple, that's easy for everybody to understand," Roseanne Helms said.

Why it matters: California's current system differentiates in-state and out-of-state degree pathways and lists acceptable degree titles; staff said that distinction has become harder to apply as programs shift to hybrid and online models. The proposed framework would: (1) remove the in-state/out-of-state distinction, (2) remove degree-title lists and instead accept degrees that clearly meet required course competencies, (3) require a core practicum that cannot be remediated…