The Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors licenses those clinical counselors for practice in the state. You doubtless enjoy and earn significant personal, professional, and financial rewards from your Pennsylvania clinical practice as a social worker, therapist, or counselor. All of those rewards, though, depend on retaining your Pennsylvania State Board license in good standing against disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain the LLF Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team to defend and defeat your Pennsylvania State Board charges. We are available in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Reading City, Upper Darby, Scranton, Lower Merion, Bensalem, Abington, Lancaster City, Bethlehem City, and all other Pennsylvania locations.
Pennsylvania State Board Authority
Sections 5 and 6 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act establish the Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors to license and regulate the practice of those clinical counselor professionals. Section 4 of the Act requires social workers, therapists, and counselors to obtain a State Board license to practice, making it unlawful to fail to do so. The Act's Section 20 repeats that unlicensed practice is unlawful while authorizing the State Board to obtain an injunction against unlicensed practice. Pennsylvania enforces injunctions with contempt sanctions, including fines and imprisonment. The Act's Sections 16 to 16.4 prohibit social workers, therapists, and counselors from using those titles or designations unless they hold a current and valid license.
If you lose your Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors license to State Board disciplinary charges, then you must cease your practice in your clinical counselor profession. Without a current and valid license, you must give up your clinical counselor employment and notify your clients that you are unable to continue serving them. Let us help you defend and defeat your disciplinary charges to preserve and protect your rewarding clinical practice.
Pennsylvania State Board License Requirements
Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act states the licensure requirements for social workers, therapists, and counselors practicing in the state. Those requirements are lengthy and detailed. Under Section 7, the State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors licenses three classes of social workers and one class each of therapists and counselors. The license requirements for each profession include good moral character, the appropriate undergraduate or graduate degree, passage of the relevant licensing exam, an appropriate criminal history background check, and an accurate and complete application on the State Board's forms. You know the substantial time, expense, and effort to which you went to obtain your State Board licensure as a social worker, therapist, or counselor. Don't lose that investment to disciplinary charges. Let us help defend and defeat those charges.
Pennsylvania Consumer Complaints
Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act authorizes the State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors to discipline the license of its clinical counselors to protect clients and the public from harm due to substandard practice. To carry out that duty, the State Board maintains a website that encourages consumers to file a complaint against the State Board's licensed clinical counselors. The Pennsylvania Department of State publishes State Board disciplinary action reports online for public disclosure and review. Anyone can examine the State Board's disciplinary action reports to see the licensee's name and discipline. Avoid the public embarrassment and private impact of license discipline. Get our defense help.
Responding to Pennsylvania Consumer Complaints
Your first step in avoiding State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors license discipline can be to address concerns before they morph into State Board complaints. Clients and professional colleagues of social workers, therapists, and counselors are the most likely complainants. They are the most likely to observe and bear the brunt of counselor misconduct. Other licensed professionals may even have a duty to report your suspected misconduct. For example, Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act expressly requires the State Board's licensed counselors to report substance abuse or dependency of another licensed counselor that appears to impair the counselor in practice.
If you learn that a client, professional colleague, or other person has a concern that you may be violating professional standards in your licensed counseling practice, retain us immediately to help you properly address the concern. Do not threaten or coerce the individual to discourage a State Board complaint. State Board officials may construe your doing so as obstruction, for which you could face its own disciplinary charge. Let us help you gather and sensitively and diplomatically present to the individual your explanation for the suspicious behavior. Together, we may be able to head off a formal complaint to the State Board.
Pennsylvania State Board Disciplinary Grounds
Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act lists the specific grounds on which the State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors may discipline the license of its clinical counselors. State Board disciplinary officials may not make up the rules and standards as they go along. Instead, they must generally point to one or more of Section 11's specified disciplinary grounds to support the disciplinary charges they make. Section 11 authorizes the following grounds on which to discipline one of the State Board's licensed social workers, therapists, or counselors:
- conviction of a felony crime or misdemeanor crime of moral turpitude, whether by guilty plea, jury or bench trial, no contest plea (nolo contendere), admission of guilt for probation without verdict, or accelerated or alternative disposition. Misdemeanor crimes of moral turpitude may include crimes of dishonesty, like criminal fraud, or corruption, like lewd conduct;
- immoral or unprofessional conduct, the latter including “any departure from or failure to conform to the standards of acceptable and prevailing practice”;
- violating other standards of professional practice that the State Board specifically adopts;
- obtaining a State Board license through false statements or other credential fraud or submitting false or deceptive license renewal requests;
- license denial, suspension, or revocation in another state or jurisdiction;
- violating a State Board disciplinary order or regulation; and
- inability to practice with reasonable skill and safety because of substance abuse, dependency, addiction, or other mental or physical impairment.
Our attorneys can help you defend State Board disciplinary charges involving any of the above grounds or other special or general grounds that the State Board alleges. Do not self-represent. Get our highly qualified help.
Pennsylvania State Board Investigations
The Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors has statutory authority to investigate consumer disciplinary complaints. Section 19 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act authorizes State Board investigatory subpoenas to compel witness testimony and gather records addressing the accused counselor's suspected wrongdoing. State Board officials do not necessarily initiate an investigation of every single consumer complaint. Some complaints do not allege a rule or standards violation. Other complaints may be so trivial or incredible and so unrelated to client protection as not to warrant the State Board's expenditure of investigation resources. State Board officials will review complaints preliminarily, assigning an investigator or investigation team to only those complaints of potential merit.
Pennsylvania State Board Investigation Response
Retain us the moment you learn of a Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors investigation. You may learn of an investigation through a client, colleague, or employer representative whom an investigator contacted for documentation or interview before you hear from the investigator directly. Still, retain us to help you prepare for the investigation. We will help you identify, preserve, gather, organize, and present your defense evidence to the investigator. If you hear from the investigator requesting your interview before you have had time and our assistance to prepare, beware of providing information carelessly, off the cuff, and in haphazard or incomplete fashion. The investigator may construe your misstatements and omissions as attempts to obstruct the investigation, resulting in additional disciplinary charges. Let us help ensure that your responses are accurate, consistent, complete, comprehensive, and truthful.
Pennsylvania State Board Disciplinary Sanctions
Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act authorizes a wide range of discipline. Section 11 provides that State Board officials may “refuse, suspend, revoke, limit, or restrict a license or reprimand a licensee” after finding that misconduct occurred. License limitations may involve a restriction to your current employment or employment location, a restriction to certain nursing practices, a prohibition on caring for children or other vulnerable individuals, or the requirement that you work only under direct supervision. State Board officials may also condition your license on your accepting evaluation, treatment, counseling, mentoring, monitoring, or additional training or education.
Mitigating Pennsylvania State Board Sanctions
Our attorneys may be able to use the above disciplinary options to negotiate alternative remedial relief that avoids harsh sanctions or even avoids any discipline, keeping your record clear. We may be able to put on a strong case for mitigating sanctions. Factors in mitigation may include:
- that your conduct caused no client harm or loss and no substantial risk of harm or loss;
- that your conduct involved a one-time event under emergency or other extraordinary circumstances not likely to repeat;
- that you suffered an unforeseeable medication reaction or other medical event momentarily impairing your practice, which you have since corrected;
- that you have already taken concerted and effective steps to remove or correct any other impediment to your compliant practice;
- that you are willing to accept mentoring, monitoring, training, or education to ensure your future compliance;
- that you have a long and clean record of skilled and compassionate counseling service that your clients need and value; and
- that the State Board has no remaining client or public protection interest that punitive sanctions would promote.
Pennsylvania State Board Discipline Consequences
The potential collateral consequences of your State Board discipline may be broader, deeper, and worse than you think. Do not underestimate those consequences when determining how to proceed with your disciplinary defense. If you suffer license suspension or revocation, you must terminate your counseling practice, notifying your employer and clients. You may not take other counseling employment requiring a license. You are unlikely to be able to gain a new license in another state to promptly replace your lost employment. Loss of employment can have severe impacts on your personal and professional relationships, as well as your financial obligations. You could lose the support of colleagues and be unable to maintain your family and household financial obligations. Let us help you avoid the worst impacts and preserve your license and practice.
Pennsylvania State Board Hearing and Appeal
Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors Act expressly requires the State Board to hold a hearing and provide you with the other procedural protections of the state's Administrative Procedures Act. We can invoke those procedural protections on your behalf, including acting as your advocate at the State Board hearing. We can also take your administrative appeal if you have already lost your State Board hearing and seek court review and relief beyond that, as necessary.
Premier Pennsylvania State Board License Defense
Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain the LLF Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team if you are a Pennsylvania licensed social worker, therapist, or counselor facing State Board disciplinary charges. Our skilled and experienced attorneys have helped hundreds of social workers, therapists, mental health counselors, and other professionals nationwide with successful defense of disciplinary charges.
