Good Morning, and welcome to Counselor Weekly, the best newsletter for counselors and mental health professionals you'll ever receive (based on my own personal opinion 😃)!

You might be wondering why you're receiving this random newsletter??  At some point in the past, you chose to join my previous newsletter at mattbierds.com.  I appreciate you subscribing and I am transitioning into a weekly newsletter format called "Counselor Weekly" where I'll be sending you amazing content once per week right into your inbox.  Of course, if you're not interested, I completely respect that and you are welcome to opt out at any time, but I hope you give it a chance over the next few weeks and see all the amazing articles/updates/info and cat pictures (yes, each week an entertaining cat picture 😼 created by my son) you'll receive will make it worth your while to stick around.

That's me 👆

So let's get to it!  Here is an example of what you'll receive each week in your inbox:

Greetings from Counselor Weekly!  Today is 1/25/23 and it's National Irish Coffee Day!  Back in 1942, it was invented by Joseph Sheridan in Ireland.  In celebration, there's never a bad time to add a little "extra" to your coffee (except if you still have work to do today)!

Here's the short and skinny of today's newsletter:

• Big News!!

• Interesting articles related to mental health

• Advocacy in Counseling

• Cat Photo

BIG NEWS!!

Passage of the Mental Health Access Improvement Act

On December 23, 2022, President Biden signed into law a new bill that now allows LPCs and MFTs to contract as Medicare providers!  THIS IS HUGE!!  Organizations such as the American Counseling Association and countless others have been lobbying for this to happen forever and it's finally done.  What's next?  Click the link above to get information about what comes next and how to enroll as a provider.🙌

Articles You Might Enjoy

How to Solve Problems (4 Distancing Methods) by Mitchell Landon

• Quick read with some helpful problem solving tips to help your clients (and yourself).

Four Ways Mindfulness Can Boost Your Mental Health and Help the Environment by Calin Van Paris

• Who couldn't use a little more mindfulness in their life, right? 🧘

The HIPAA Basics: What Every Therapist Needs to Know by Jocelyn Van Saun

• I know, it's no fun to think about HIPAA, but this is a good refresher article you should read if you're proving counseling services. And by the way, please make sure you spell HIPAA correctly on your website and everywhere else! Can't tell you how many times I've seen people spell HIPAA incorrectly!

Advocacy in Counseling

In this section, I bring you a major reason to advocate for the counseling profession: MONEY! 💰💵

Here's an example of the work we still have in advocating for higher pay.  Below is a picture of a current job opening in Austin, TX (taken right off of Indeed):

And here is a current job "opportunity" currently available for a counselor in Austin (also from Indeed):

Let's do some quick math here...

First job is customer rep job requiring no higher level education, no licensure, no master's degree, and list goes on and on.  But, this job starts at $30/hr which comes to approximately $62,400 per year.  Starting salary!!

Now look at the second job, working as a LEAD counselor, and requires full licensure.  So keep in mind this candidate has already finished undergrad and grad school, completed the 3000 hours to obtain full licensure, and needs experience because this is a "Lead" position.  On top of that, it says the clinician may have on-call requirements.  Finally, when you look deeper into the job posting, the number mentioned in the ad ($68,729) is actually the max salary for the position.  The minimum (and most likely salary offered) listed in the job posting is actually $60,055.

Conclusion: we still have a lot of work to do in advocating for better pay and benefits!

This is just one of many examples where counselors and mental health professionals are not paid at the value of your worth!  We need to continue to push for better pay, better benefits, removal of "on-call" duties, and being treated as equals in the medical community.

And, Finally the Cat Picture

A cat surfing!  by my son, Cole.