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Alzheimer's LA urges dementia training; BBS committee asks staff and SMEs to craft options and invite stakeholders
Summary
Alzheimer's Los Angeles presented data on dementia prevalence and caregiver burden and urged adding coursework or continuing-education requirements focused on Alzheimer's, dementia and caregiving. The committee voted to consult subject-matter experts and invite stakeholder groups back to the September meeting to discuss hours and content for degrees begun on or after Jan. 1, 2030.
Alzheimer's Los Angeles told the Board of Behavioral Sciences Workforce Development Committee on June 16 that the state'level rise in dementia and heavy caregiver burdens justify updating degree or continuing-education requirements for mental-health clinicians.
"As of 2026, 7.4 million people in the United States are living with a dementia," Barbara McClendon, associate vice president of public policy for Alzheimer's Los Angeles, told the committee, summarizing the organization's slide packet and arguing clinicians need training to support progressive cognitive decline and family caregiving over time.
McClendon outlined caregiver impacts, saying many caregivers report high emotional stress and face long-term family-system disruptions. She urged the committee to consider dementia-specific content for core training: grief and ambiguous loss, role changes within families, communication and behavioral therapy across disease progression, and intimacy and sexual-function issues that caregivers and clinicians find difficult to address.
Committee members acknowledged the need and discussed pathways. Justin Huft asked whether any other state requires dementia coursework; staff and the stakeholder noted only Illinois requires one hour of continuing education on Alzheimer's/dementia. The committee debated whether to require graduate-level coursework or to require content via continuing education, and noted equity and burden concerns for already-crowded degree curricula.
After discussion, the committee voted to have staff consult with SMEs, invite Alzheimer's Los Angeles and representatives of perinatal mental-health stakeholders back to the September Workforce Development Committee meeting, and develop recommended content and hours for possible CE or degree inclusion applying to degrees begun on or after January 1, 2030.
What happens next: Staff and SMEs will prepare a proposed outline of recommended content and suggested hours (CE and degree options) and return with a law-format draft for committee review in September. Stakeholder redlines and written comments were invited.
