Counseling Licensure in Louisiana
Every state has its own set of specific requirements that must be met by prospective counselors and Louisiana is no exception. You must have attained a Master’s of Counseling degree, meet supervised experience requirements and take an exam proving your understand the occupation. It is a great idea to take the time to become familiarized with the Louisiana Professional Counselors Board of Examiners website here:
These are the steps you will need to complete to attain the Licensed Professional Counselor title in Louisiana:
- Meet the educational requirement of having your Master of Counseling degree from a Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) or Council on Counseling Rehabilitation (CORE in the case of rehabilitation counselors) accredited university.
- Complete a practicum as part of your graduate studies.
- Pass a criminal background check.
- Write the board with a plan for your supervised experience step and have it accepted.
- Accrue all of the required hours of supervised experience to meet the state requirement.
- Apply to take your National Counselor Examination (NCE) as administered by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC).
Apply to the Louisiana Professional Counselors Board of Examiners to receive your Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) title.
Educational Requirements
Louisiana law states that prospective Counselors will need to fulfill the following educational steps as part of the licensure process.
Sponsored School(s)
- The first step is to earn your Bachelor’s degree in Counseling. This is considered the best option; if not counseling then you will want to earn a Bachelor’s in a highly related Social Science discipline such as Psychology, Social Work or Human Services.
- The next step is to apply to and get accepted into a Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accredited Master of Counseling program.
- Your graduate program must include some sort of practicum.
- You must then complete an internship
- The practicum must have a minimum of 40 hours of working directly with mental health clients with at least one hour per week of individual supervision and an additional one and a half hours of group supervision.
- The internship will require a full 120 hours of direct client contact and you will need the same level supervision as required during the practicum.
Supervised Experience
To gain the Licensed Professional Counselor title, you will need to meet the requirements for supervised experience per Louisiana Law.
- Pass a criminal background check.
- Submit a supervised experience plan to the board and have in approved.
- You can find information on this plan here:
- You will need to complete a full 3000 hours of supervised experience.
- You must complete all experience after graduation.
- 1900 hours must be in the form of direct client counseling.
- 50 hours of the supervised experience must be under direct supervision.
- 50 hours of supervision may be in a group format.
- You can complete a maximum of 1000 hours of performing counseling related activities that are related to counseling duties, but are not direct client contact.
- You can reduce your supervised experience requirement by up to 1000 hours by doing post graduate course work that exchanges at a rate of 30 hours of course work counting as 500 hours of supervised practice.
- You must always complete a minimum of 2000 hours of supervised experience regardless of educational attainment.
- You must complete all supervised experience in a period of time not less than two years and not more than seven.
- You can find potential supervisors here:
Apply for and Take Your NCE
The next step is to apply for and take your exam:
- Apply to the Louisiana Professional Counselors Board of Examiners to take your National Counselor Examination (NCE) as administered by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC).
- Pass the NCE with a score acceptable under Louisiana law.
Apply for Your LPC License
Once you have passed the NCE you may apply to the board for your full LPC title.
- Apply to the Louisiana Professional Counselors Board of Examiners for your LPC title.
- You can find the appropriate form here:
Continuing Education
You will need to renew your license every other year and you will need to have completed your continuing education requirement that time.
- Complete 40 hours of Continuing Education credits every two years.
You will want to stay ahead of any changes to Louisiana law by visiting the Louisiana Professional Counselors Board of Examiners website every few months. You can find the website here: