‘Units’ Versus ‘Hours’ – MFT 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. It is important to know how your state defines this term when seeking out continuing education. A second phrase that is used is “contact/clock hour”. This term gives a better frame of reference when assigning the amount of continuing education credit to a course. This article will review both terms and evaluate the methodology used for both.
“Unit” is the first term to evaluate. “Unit” is what the U stands for in the term CEU. It is most widely accepted that one CEU equals 10 hours of instruction. This acceptance is sporadic within the mental health field. There is some divide among the state boards whether a CEU equals 10 hours of instruction or just one hour of instruction. In light of this conflict mental health state boards are moving away from using the term CEU or Unit when explaining the continuing education requirements of their licensed professionals. In place of CEU or Unit is the phrase Contact Hour or interchangeable phrase Clock Hour.
“Contact hour” means what is says, one hour of “contact” with the learning material or one hour of actual presentation from a speaker. One hour does not usually mean the full 60 minutes but rather only 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. This is easy to measure when attending a workshop, seminar or conference. What is the definition of a contact/clock hour for online courses or home study courses?
People’s rate of reading range widely, thus making it difficult to define to define a contact/clock hour to just time alone. What is the best way to define Contact Hour for this venue? The NBCC has a solution, define “contact/clock hour” as a certain word count for each document of a home study course. 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. Otherwise, you may be submitting certificates that are not approved by your state board. 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 is an online provider of CEUs that utilizes the NBCC definition of contact hour. Aspira provides courses for MFT continuing education. You can visit Aspira at http://www.aspirace.com. View Aspira’s feed at MFT continuing education article feed