2022 California Legislative Session

CAMFT's Legislative Committee and staff have completed their initial bill review of 2022 legislation impacting CAMFT members. A few bills of interest to CAMFT members are summarized below, along with CAMFT’s co-sponsored legislation.

Remote Supervision - AB 1758 (Aguiar Curry) - Support: This bill would allow for the remote supervision of associates, regardless of the setting.  This is an urgency bill that would go into effect upon the Governor’s signature.  This bill is sponsored by the Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS).

Continuing Education - AB 1759 (Aguiar Curry) - Support: This requires all BBS registrants to complete a one-time three hour Telehealth course.  This bill also requires for registrants to complete a three hour Law and Ethics (L&E) course at each renewal.  This is a new requirement for associates, but it aligns their Law and Ethics education with licensees and seeks to ensure that there is no gap in their law and ethics education.  The new L&E requirements replaces the existing 12-hour course requirement.

Behavioral Health Internship Grant Program AB 2666 (Salas) - Support: This bill requires the Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) to establish and administer a grant program to allocate funding in the form of stipends, to be distributed to students in behavioral health fields of study and practice, who are participating in internships or completing licensure hours, through unpaid positions, at federally qualified health centers (FQHC).

Federally Qualified Health Centers: Behavioral Health Access SB 966 (Limon) - Co-Sponsor: This bill removes administrative barriers that have prevented MFTs from providing care and substance use disorder treatment in Federally Qualified Health Clinics (FQHC) and Rural Health Clinics (RHC). Current Medi-Cal policy requires FQHCs and RHCs to file a new "scope of services" when adding a new provider, like MFTs. By eliminating that administrative hurdle, FQHCs and RHCs may hire MFTs to help ensure services are available to their patients and increase access to behavioral health treatment.

Additionally, this bill makes a Federal COVID-19 pandemic waiver permanent and allows Associate Marriage and Family Therapists and Associate Clinical Social Workers to work in FQHCs and RHCs.  This will provide an additional opportunity for these associate clinicians to pursue their clinical hours required for state licensure and improve access to consumers.

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