The American Counseling Association, currently headquartered in Arlington, VA, was founded in 1952 when four independent national counseling groups came together to form a unified association in order to strengthen the voice of counseling as a profession. The American School Counselor Association was the first subsequently chartered division (in 1953) of ACA.
The American Counseling Association of Missouri (known generally as ACAM) is, simply put, a state branch of the American Counseling Association. It was founded in 1969 as the Missouri Personnel and Guidance Association and has since gone through several name changes, mirroring ACA’s name changes over the years. Its present title is intended to indicate its close relationship with the national Association.
In keeping with the purpose of ACA, the Missouri Branch sees itself as a “big tent,” that is, a means for all counselors living or working in Missouri to share knowledge and experience and to act jointly on matters of common concern, even though many counselors’ primary affiliation may be with a more specialized group—career counselors, for example, or school counselors or counselor educators or clinical mental health counselors, among others.
Currently active specialized divisions of ACAM include the Missouri Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors (MACES), the Missouri Career Development Association, (MoCDA), and the Missouri Mental Health Counselors Association (MMHCA).
The Missouri School Counselor Association has never been a division of ACAM. I am not sure of the reasons for this, but a good guess might be that it is because MSCA existed for about 10 years before ACAM came into being, and also because MSCA is a considerably larger organization.
Nevertheless, ACAM and MSCA work at keeping in touch with each other. Lela Bunch, PhD, LPC, the Executive Director of MSCA, is the current MSCA Liaison to ACAM’s Governing Council, succeeding Dr. Janice Ward of Southeast Missouri State University. For it’s part, ACAM recognizes MSCA as an “Organizational Affiliate.” This designation is made in order to emphasize that we share common interests and values with MSCA and therefore have reason to work at networking and collaboration.
Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of ACAM in its 40-year history has been to fight for and win state licensure (LPC) for professional counselors in Missouri. This was accomplished in 1986. The subsequent legislative project, ongoing for about 10 years now, is to make sure that licensure law explicitly recognizes the longstanding and necessary practice of LPCs providing DSM IV diagnosis as part of their assessment and care of clients.
This legislative issue and others have in the past six years been taken on specifically by the Missouri Mental Health Counselors Association, which is a very strong organization in its own right. MMHCA has made issues of legislation and regulations affecting counselors one of its primary concerns.
But what else does ACAM do for our members these days? It’s not reasonable, in the current scheme of things, to simply expect professionals to join their professional association because it’s there. So ACAM provides value to our members and other Missouri Counselors through high quality CE events in the Spring and Fall of each year.
The Annual Conference in Jefferson City (April 7th – 9th in 2011) provides 20 continuing education hours over a three-day period, charging a registration fee to ACAM members of roughly what a touring one-day seminar would charge for six CE hours.
The Spring Conference generally touches on a range of topics across the wide spectrum of counseling specialties, reflecting ACAM’s purpose of serving the needs of counselors in many specialties and work settings.
In addition, ACAM provides one-day Fall seminars in Kansas City and St. Louis. And this year for the first time we hope to hold a one-day Winter event in Springfield. (Stay tuned!)
Another major service to our members, as well as to other counselors and the public, is the very user-friendly ACAM website, www.counselingmissouri.org. It is about 18 months old in its present form, having replaced a less interactive site. The ACAM site reaches out to the public on behalf of the profession. For example, there is an explanation of who counselors are and what they do, as well as a “counselor locator” feature.
The website also provides online event and membership registration and payment, and it enables members, especially those in private practice, to advertise themselves to the public (again through the “Counselor Locator” feature). This blog is the most recent addition to the site, and other features are in the planning stage.
ACAM has a flourishing regional chapter in Kansas City (www.counselingkc.org) and a re-nascent regional chapter in the St. Louis area. There is interest in a southwest Missouri area chapter, but nothing specific there as yet. MOLPC is an optional “interest group” within ACAM. Its focus has been on the development of leadership potential within ACAM.
Until 2008, ACAM had always been an organization of volunteers with a paid secretary. But due to the increasing speed with which events (for better or worse) seem to move, the Governing Council decided in 2008 that someone was needed who could handle day-to-day decisions to keep projects moving forward, who could answer day-to-day questions of counselors and others, and who could respond to email and see that the bills are paid and the records are up to date. This decision to create the part-time position of Executive Director has paid off in increased membership and increased services to ACAM members and all of Missouri’s LPCs.
So, changing with the times and progressing via the new resources available to us, ACA of Missouri is nevertheless remaining exactly the same in that our goal is simply to create a professional community and voice of and for all Missouri counselors, for the enrichment of our clients, our profession, and each other.
