Continuing Education for MFTs - The Different Meanings of "Units" in the Term CEUs

The term "CEU" is not universally understood as the same thing. Even all of the state boards don't have a common definition of this term. Read your state boards definition in their rules and regulations for continuing education prior to attaining continuing education from a provider. A term that is used many times in place of "units" is "contact hour". Contact hour is more widely accepted as the universal label for the measurement for determining the amount of continuing education each course is worth. Both of these terms will be explained more thoroughly.

First term we will discuss is "unit". This is the term used when using the acronym CEU. Most organizations rely on the universally accepted definition of a CEU equaling 10 hours of instruction time. The mental health profession has mixed definitions. Some states say one CEU equals 10 hours of instruction, while other states will say one CEU is equal to one hour of instruction. Due to this variation in definitions, it seems most state boards have abandoned the use of the term "unit" when explaining the requirements for the licensed professionals they govern. The term "contact hour" (or in some instances the term "clock hour") is gaining more widespread acceptance.

The definition of a "contact/clock hour" is one hour of non-stop learning or instruction. The one hour is usually accepted to mean 50 minutes. This was due to those attaining their "contact hours" at a live workshop with several classes back to back and thus needing a 10 minute break between sessions. If you attend a conference or live workshop, then defining the contact hour is simple. What is the definition of a contact/clock hour for online courses or home study courses?

Not everyone reads at the same pace. This makes it challenging to assign the meaning of a contact hour for reading material. How is Contact Hour defined with home study courses? What the NBCC decided to do is determine an average reading speed. Then determine the amount of words that can be read in an hour at that speed. Then assign that total word count as their measurement for one contact/clock hour. Here is an excerpt from the NBCC website explaining this:

"2. Home Study Programs.

Home study-approved clock hours must be calculated in accordance with the following requirements.
The number of hours of credit awarded must be based on an accurate word count for text-based materials, and on an accurate word count plus listening/viewing time for mixed text and audio/visual materials. A reading speed of 66 words per minute is used to calculate the number of clock hours
that may be awarded for text-based home study programs. One hour of continuing education credit
may be awarded for a minimum of 4,000 words of text."

http://www.nbcc.org/Assets/CEProvider/approvedproviderpolicies.pdf (page 10)

In conclusion, it is important to know what definition your state board relies upon for CEU and use that as your definition. If not, you may not get the amount of credit for your continuing education you expected. Since most state boards use the term "contact hour" or "clock hour", make sure the online provider you choose uses these same terms on their certificates of completion.

Aspira Continuing Education is an online provider of CEUs that utilizes the NBCC definition of contact hour. Aspira CEUs provides courses for MFT continuing education. You can visit Aspira at http://www.aspirace.com. View Aspira's feed at http://www.jumptags.com/CEUs2255/?rss=xml