UPDATE: Our California Law & Ethics Practice
Test is available now. Go to our
purchase page, click on "California," and select California Law
& Ethics. For more details, click here.
California social workers heading toward licensure have at this
point probably gotten word of changes that are coming to the
California LCSW licensing process. Here are the basics: California
has long had a two exams--the Standard Written and Clinical
Vignette. Starting on January 1st, 2016, that changes. There will
still be two exams, yes. One will be a 75-question California Law
and Ethics exam. The other will be the exam familiar to social
workers across the rest of the country, the ASWB Clinical Exam.
Details about the L&E exam are somewhat hazy. The ASWB exam is
well-known. It's like a shorter, CA-specific law & ethics-free
version of the CA Standard Written. There are details for days on
aswb.org and multiple practice
tests for it right here at SWTP. Here's that info as delivered by
the BBS on
their site:
Effective January 1, 2016 the Board's examination process will
be restructured...A California Law and Ethics Exam will replace the
Standard Written Exam for LMFT and LCSW applicants. For LPCC
applicants this exam will not change. It is designed to assess the
applicant's knowledge of and ability to apply legal and ethical
standards relating to clinical practice. This will consist of 75
multiple-choice items administered over a two-hour period [UPDATE:
CHANGED TO 90 MINUTES]. The re-exam waiting period for the exam is
90 days.
Curious about what the L&E exam will cover in those 75
questions? Take a look at the outline at the end of the LPCC
Candidate Handbook. What's there is unsurprising--it's the very
material that was covered in questions that appeared on the old
exams: Confidentiality and Privilege, Limits of Confidentiality,
Professional Conduct, Informed Consent, Standards of Practice,
Scope of Competence, and Therapeutic Relationship. To help you get
prepped, we'll have a practice exam (or two) up toward the end of
the year. In the meantime, your Code of Ethics and select sections
of the California legal code are your friends.
An additional heads-up: no exams will be administered in
California between December 1 and 31st, 2015. From the BBS:
In order to ensure a successful transition, the Board will be
implementing an examination blackout period for Licensed Marriage
and Family Therapist (LMFT) and Licensed Clinical Social Worker
(LCSW) examinations to ensure the integrity of examination
candidate data during the transition. The
Examination Blackout Period provides more information
as to what this means for you.
Keep an eye on the SWTP blog for more California exam news as it
comes.