Substance Abuse Counselor Certification in Maryland: COUC 691

This report, prepared for COUC 691, details the requirements for substance abuse counselor certification and licensure in Maryland. The report outlines the roles of the Maryland Board of Professional Counseling and Therapists and the four designated regulatory bodies: CSC-AD, LCACD, CAC-AD, and LGADC. It specifies the educational prerequisites, including required degrees and coursework in substance abuse counseling, and the differences in requirements for various licensure levels. The report covers the necessary training hours, supervised experience, and examination requirements, including the EMAC and state law tests. Additionally, it highlights the work and practice standards expected of licensed professionals, including supervision responsibilities and the scope of practice. The report concludes with a reiteration of the importance of adhering to the rigorous certification and licensure process to ensure qualified professionals in the field of substance abuse counseling.

Running Head: SUBSTANCE ABUSE CERTIFICATION AND LICENSURE 1
Substance Abuse Certification and Licensure
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliate
Date

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Substance Abuse Counselor/ Alcohol and Drug Counselor Requirements in Maryland
Introduction
Maryland board of professional counselling and therapists is the body responsible for
licensing the substance abuse counsellors in the states of Maryland. In the states, there are at
least four alcohol and drug counselling that have been appointed to ensure that the counsellors
are all certified and operate based on stipulated standards and regulations (Boyd, et al. 2016).
Issues of quarks operating in the name of counsellors had to be addressed in with certification
without which you cannot operate in the Maryland states.
The four designated bodies to regulate the drug and substance abuse are:
 Certified Supervised Counselor-Alcohol and Drug (CSC-AD)
 Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LCACD)
 Certified Associate Counselor-Alcohol and Drug (CAC-AD) and
 Licensed Graduate Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LGADC)
Education
The academic standards have been set high in Maryland states to attain a classical and
professional counselling of drugs and substance use. In return, academic degrees are required for
one to be able to acquire the certifications. The content of the certificates should contain
coursework on the substance use, furthermore, these certificates are to be pursued for academic
accreditation but those with continuing education programs are not accepted for the meeting
requirements to obtain the initial licensure (Davis, & Carr, 2016). The level of the counselling
designation will be determined with the level of degree one has. Nonetheless, the masters and
dictate degrees have no specified distinctions as they are regarded as same. Thus for one to

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become a clinical officer, he or she must not go for the stringent coursework requirements to
fulfil post-graduate supervised practice requirements.
An advantage to mention is that a nurse can apply for a trainee in substance use before
attaining the authorization license. All these requirements were effected in October 2015 and it
contained the revised laws that defined the operation of Baccalaureate –level CAC-AD
separately. During application, an individual only requires to fill in the form of necessary
materials and then make contacts and additional information sources.
Training
For one to qualify as an Alcohol and Drug Trainee, the nurse trainee must have attained at
least a minimum of 15 semester hours of coursework in alcohol and drug counselling in addition
to coursework in ethics. A candidate in possession of a degree at the associate level or higher
automatically qualifies even without providing the coursework evidence for operation in board-
mandated areas. An individual whose associate degree does not conform with the counselling-
oriented health and human service field can as well be eligible for certification but only upon
confirmation of the 15 semester hour coursework related to alcohol and drug substance use
(Hume, Lewis, & Nelson, 2017). In general, a trainee will require a minimum of two years of
well-supervised substance abuse counselling experience after which, it is advisable for one to
work for one year that is composed of at least 1000 hours for better grooming in the substance
abuse psychology.
Training
Gradually, for an individual to have CAC-AD, he must have a baccalaureate degree that
qualifies for health and human service field, the person must have attained 21-hour semester

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coursework in drugs and alcohol counselling and add to it a one-hour ethics unit. Besides, if an
individual has to apply for the same substantial program, he or she must have at least a 45 hour
semester and in it, there should be more units of counselling (Kunz, & Wiegand, 2016, March).
The institution to which the program is attained should be a well-recognized in the counselling
profession in Maryland. Furthermore, a CAC-AD needs to have a three-year experience in the
field of counselling and should at least have attained a 2,000 semester hours of substance abuse
counselling experienced serving under an obliged supervisor. At least the candidate must excel in
IC and RC examination which are currently administered through the computer and then wait for
approval following the success in requirements and examination approval. Besides, a Maryland
state laws examination that is administered by the board office will seal the qualifications for
CAC-AD.
The qualifications for the LCADC requires one to have a doctoral degree of 90 semester hour
or a 60-hour semester degree. The exceptional advantage is that the board can allow for the
persons who have achieved a 48-hour master's degree to sit for the additional coursework in the
LCADC. The degree should be of human service and counselling related field. As well a
graduate degree can also be granted when an individual has done some counselling related
programs. For this to happen, the applicant must present at least 51 counselling credits to the
board concerned (Marynak, et al.2018). The mandatory coursework required for the applicants to
have is 27-semester coursework conforming to the drug and alcohol counselling that luckily may
include some of the undergraduate level coursework. The candidate will thus require tri-semester
coursework at undergraduate level taking the following units;
 Individual counselling
 Human growth and development

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 Professional practice and ethics
 Group therapy
 Counselling theory
 Alcohol and drug counselling
 Family counselling
 Addiction service delivery
 Substance abuse model
 Pharmacology and psychoactive drugs topics
The tine of covering these topics will entirely depend on the institutional routine. For
example, the institutions that learn and teach quarterly will require five hours each. At the
undergraduate level, the following courses must be tackled;
 Addiction treatment delivery
 Psychopathology and diagnosis and
 Psychotherapy and treatment of the mental disorder
Some additional delivery course which includes evaluation is admitted at the graduate
level.
Examination
After completion of postmaster requirements practice, an individual can then be referred
to as a professional who can be awarded a Licensed Graduate Alcohol and Drug Counseling
(LGADC). After this, the expert is thus expected to pass a national board of certified counsellors
Examination for the Master Addiction Counselors (EMAC) (Rutkow, & Vernick, 2017). This
examination is administered together with the state law test which the applicant must pass.

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The application deadlines are always displayed in the websites hence the applicants for
the EMAC examinations should ensure that they submit their documents and credentials before
the time elapses. The EMAC tests are done only four times a year so the individuals should
check-in for the pre-approval for examination worthiness. The application window is always
open prior three months before the examination kick-off (Sher, 2016). If the submission of the
credentials is not done before the deadline time, the applicant will be considered unworthy and
will be forwarded to the next examination schedule.
Work and Practice Standards
At this stage, the national board will require at least 100 hours of close supervision of the
candidates who have attained a three-year experience and at one post-doctoral level (Weiner,
Bao, & Meisel, 2017). With these degrees, the candidates only require 2,000 hours supervision to
verify their clinical experience. Later, the board will spend 100 hours face-to-face supervision
for either the master or the post-doctoral candidate on an individual basis.
The successful applicants of LGADC are thereafter permitted in various places. First is
work with families and various groups on therapy, counseling and trauma related care. Secondly,
they can be referred to conduct a mental therapy in the hospitals by other senior practitioners.
Third is clinical evaluation, meaning assessment, screening and diagnosis of mental health
disorder just to mention but a few. In addition, the LGADC professionals are able to handle
professional responsibilities such as ethical practices and documentation. Besides, they can also
be granted power to supervise the trainees on behalf of the senior practitioner.
Conclusion
After all these criteria, requirements and qualification have been approved, the clinical
officer is thus considered worthy and able to conduct substance use and drug abuse counselling

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in any town, streets of the state of Maryland. The expert will be granted the authority to exercise
his operation without fear of breaching the law. All the licenses will be issued upon completion
of the process. To curb it all, the tiresome and worthwhile approval certification and licensing
process are structurally designed to suggest that each stage is very important and thus should not
be assumed. The applicants must go through all the mentioned procedures as required by the
stipulated rules and regulation and if possible, no short-cut method should be applied because
substance use and drug abuse cases require highly trained ad knowledgeable professional
counsellors who are nearly perfect in human services.
References
Boyd, J. E., Graunke, B., Frese, F. J., Jones, J. T., Adkins, J. W., & Bassman, R. (2016). State
psychology licensure questions about mental illness and compliance with the Americans
with Disabilities Act. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 86(6), 620.
Davis, C. S., & Carr, D. (2016). Physician continuing education to reduce opioid misuse, abuse,
and overdose: Many opportunities, few requirements. Drug and alcohol dependence, 163,
100-107.

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Hume, M., Lewis, L. L., & Nelson, R. M. (2017). Meeting the goal of concurrent adolescent and
adult licensure of HIV prevention and treatment strategies. Journal of medical
ethics, 43(12), 857-860.
Kunz, K., & Wiegand, T. (2016, March). Addiction medicine: current status of certification,
maintenance of certification, training, and practice. In Journal of Medical
Toxicology (Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 76-78). Springer US.
Marynak, K., VanFrank, B., Tetlow, S., Mahoney, M., Phillips, E., Jamal, A., ... & Babb, S.
(2018). Tobacco cessation interventions and smoke-free policies in mental health and
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Weekly Report, 67(18), 519.
Rutkow, L., & Vernick, J. S. (2017). Emergency legal authority and the opioid crisis. New
England Journal of Medicine, 377(26), 2512-2514.
Sher, K. J. (Ed.). (2016). The Oxford handbook of substance use and substance use
disorders (Vol. 2). Oxford University Press.
Weiner, J., Bao, Y., & Meisel, Z. (2017). Prescription drug monitoring programs: evolution and
evidence.
Wen, L. S., Behrle, E. B., & Tsai, A. C. (2017). Evaluating the impact of Affordable Care Act
repeal on America's opioid epidemic.
Zucker, R. A., & Brown, S. A. (Eds.). (2019). The Oxford Handbook of Adolescent Substance
Abuse. Oxford University Press.