Ohio licensed mental health counselors, social workers and marriage and family therapists have a biennial license renewal with a date of issue license expiration.
Thirty (30) hours of continuing education are required for license renewal.
Fifteen (15) hours of home study are allowed from home study for mental health counselors, and there are no home study limits for social workers or marriage and family therapists. Three (3) hours of ethics are required at each renewal.
Professional Development Resources is approved as a provider of continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB Provider #1046, ACE Program); by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC Provider #5590); by the American Psychological Association (APA); and by the *Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage & Family Therapist Board (Provider #RCST100501). *Ohio MFTs: check CE accreditation statement for specific course approval – if Ohio is not listed, the course is not approved.
Continuing Education Courses for Mental Health Counselors
Alzheimer’s Caregiver Guide and Tips on Acute Hospitalization is a 1-hour online course. This course is presented in two parts. Part 1 offers strategies for managing the everyday challenges of caring for a person with Alzheimer’s disease, a difficult task that can quickly become overwhelming. Research has shown that caregivers themselves often are at increased risk for depression and illness. Each day brings new challenges as the caregiver copes with changing levels of ability and new patterns of behavior. Many caregivers have found it helpful to use the strategies described in this course for dealing with difficult behaviors and stressful situations. Part 2 includes tips on acute hospitalization, which presents a new environment filled with strange sights, odors and sounds, changes in daily routines, along with new medications and tests. This section is intended to help professionals and family members meet the needs of hospitalized Alzheimer’s patients by offering facts about Alzheimer’s disease, communication tips, personal care techniques, and suggestions for working with behaviors and environmental factors in both the ER and in the hospital room. Course #10-81 | 2010 | 17 pages| 7 posttest questions
Building Resilience in your Young Client is a 3-hour online course. It has long been observed that there are certain children who experience better outcomes than others who are subjected to similar adversities, and a significant amount of literature has been devoted to the question of why this disparity exists. Research has largely focused on what has been termed “resilience.” Health professionals are treating an increasing number of children who have difficulty coping with 21st century everyday life. Issues that are hard to deal with include excessive pressure to succeed in school, bullying, divorce, or even abuse at home. This course provides a working definition of resilience and descriptions of the characteristics that may be associated with better outcomes for children who confront adversity in their lives. It also identifies particular groups of children – most notably those with developmental challenges and learning disabilities – who are most likely to benefit from resilience training. The bulk of the course – presented in two sections – offers a wide variety of resilience interventions that can be used in therapy, school, and home settings. Course #30-72 | 2014 | 53 pages | 21 posttest questions
Living a Better Life with Chronic Pain: Eliminating Self-Defeating Behaviors is a 5-hour online course. Certainly no one would choose a pain-filled body over a healthy, pain-free body. Yet every day, people unwittingly choose actions and attitudes that contribute to pain or lead to other less-than-desirable consequences on their health, relationships or ability to function. These actions and attitudes are what are called self-defeating behaviors (SDBs) and they keep us from living life to the fullest—if we let them. This course is a self-instructional module that “walks” readers through the process of replacing their self-defeating chronic pain issues with healthy, positive, and productive life-style behaviors. It progresses from an analysis of the emotional aspects of living with chronic pain to specific strategies for dealing more productively with it. Through 16 guided exercises, readers will learn how to identify their self-defeating behaviors (SDBs), analyze and understand them, and then replace them with life-giving actions that lead to permanent behavioral change. Course #50-12 | 2014 | 49 pages | 35 posttest questions
Continuing Education Courses for Social Workers
Lewy Body Dementia: Information for Patients, Families, and Professionals is a 1-hour online course. Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a disease associated with abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. These deposits, called Lewy bodies, affect chemicals in the brain whose changes, in turn, can lead to problems with thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. LBD is one of the most common causes of dementia, after Alzheimer’s disease and vascular disease. Dementia is a severe loss of thinking abilities that interferes with a person’s capacity to perform daily activities such as household tasks, personal care, and handling finances. Dementia has many possible causes, including stroke, tumor, depression, and vitamin deficiency, as well as disorders such as LBD, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. Diagnosing LBD can be challenging for a number of reasons. Early LBD symptoms are often confused with similar symptoms found in brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. Also, LBD can occur alone or along with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. This course is intended to help people with LBD, their families, and professionals learn more about the disease and resources for coping. It explains what is known about the different types of LBD and how they are diagnosed. Most importantly, it describes how to treat and manage this difficult disease, with practical advice for both people with LBD and their caregivers. Course #10-76 | 2013 | 21 pages | 10 posttest questions
Therapeutic Aspects of Running is a 1-hour online course. Physical inactivity is among the most critical public health concerns in America today. For healthcare professionals, the creation and implementation of sustainable fitness solutions is a relevant cause. This course will help you become familiar with the physical and psychological rewards involved in the activity of running, identify risks and the most common running injuries – along with their symptoms and most probable causes – and describe strategies that can be used in preventing running injuries and developing a healthy individualized running regimen. Course #10-70 | 2014 | 16 pages | 10 posttest questions
Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence-Based Screening and Assessment is a 3-hour online course. Epidemiological studies indicate a progressively rising prevalence trend in the number of individuals identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) over the past decade. Yet, compared with general population estimates, children and youth with mild to moderate symptoms of ASD remain an underidentified and underserved population in our schools and communities. The DSM-5 conceptualizations of autism require professionalsin clinical, school, and private practice settings to update their knowledge about the spectrum. In addition, professionals should be prepared to recognize the presence of risk factors and/or early warning signs of ASD and be familiar with screening and assessment tools in order to ensure that individuals with ASD are being identified and provided with the appropriate programs and services. The objectives of this course are to identify DSM-5 diagnostic changes in the ASD diagnostic criteria, summarize the empirically-based screening and assessment methodology in ASD, and describe a comprehensive developmental approach for assessing children, adolescents, and young adults with ASD. Course #30-69 | 2014 | 44 pages | 40 posttest questions
Caregiver Help Part I: Coping with Anger and Guilt is a 2-hour online video course. The emotional stress of caring for persons who are aging, chronically ill or disabled can be debilitating for family members as well as professional caregivers. This course addresses caregiver anger and guilt, and provides a three-step process that helps caregivers develop an attitude of what is described as “creative indifference” toward the people, situations and events that cause them the greatest amount of emotional stress. By gaining insights into how degenerative and progressive diseases affect the life of the caregiver, the mental health professional will be in a better position to empathize with the caregiver’s situation and provide strategies that will help them manage the stress of caring for someone whose situation will never improve. The significance of honoring and supporting caregivers’ feelings and helping them understand the importance of self-care can not only improve their physical and emotional well-being, but can also have a huge impact on the quality of care they are able to provide to their care receiver. This course includes downloadable worksheets that you can use (on a limited basis) in your clinical practice. Course #20-84 | 2014 | 15 posttest questions
Ethics and Social Media is a 2-hour online course. Is it useful or appropriate (or ethical or therapeutic) for a therapist and a client to share the kinds of information that are routinely posted on Social Networking Services (SNS) like Facebook, Twitter, and others? How are psychotherapists to handle “Friending” requests from clients? What are the threats to confidentiality and therapeutic boundaries that are posed by the use of social media sites, texts, or tweets in therapist-client communication? The purpose of this course is to offer psychotherapists the opportunity to examine their practices in regard to the use of social networking services in their professional relationships and communications. Included are ethics topics such as privacy and confidentiality, boundaries and multiple relationships, competence, the phenomenon of friending, informed consent, and record keeping. A final section offers recommendations and resources for the ethical use of social networking and the development of a practice social media policy. Course #20-75 | 2013 | 28 pages | 14 posttest questions