Counseling Board to Vote on Revised Supervision Rules for Texas Counselors in Training

The nine-member board that licenses Texas professional counselors will meet Oct. 2 to vote on whether to recommend final adoption of a rewrite of the rules that govern the supervised apprenticeship every new counselor must finish before practicing alone. Written comment reaches members only if it arrives by 5 p.m. Oct. 1.

A counseling graduate in Texas cannot start seeing clients on their own right away. They hold an LPC associate license — what Texas calls a counselor in training — work under an approved supervisor, and must log 3,000 hours over at least 18 months, at least half of them face to face with clients. The proposed changes would loosen one requirement and tighten others. The monthly supervision standard would become an average of four hours rather than a hard floor, and an associate holding both a qualifying master’s and a qualifying doctorate could count supervision earned during the doctoral program. In exchange, associates would have to tell their supervisors about any pending complaint and hand over an unresolved remediation plan when they start with a new one. Supervisors would have to arrange who keeps their records if they die, are incapacitated or close their practice, and could not be paid extra for supervision already inside a salaried job.

Formal comment on the rule text closed Sept. 6, 30 days after the proposal published in the Texas Register; written comment to the board for this meeting is due Oct. 1. The vote Oct. 2 is a recommendation, not the last word: under state law the counseling board proposes rules on who may practice, and the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council adopts them. That council next meets Oct. 27.

Members are also set to elect a vice chair. The council’s website and the board’s May 1 agenda both still list Christopher S. Taylor, whose term runs to February, in that post, and the Dispatch found no announcement that the seat is open, so what prompted the item is not on the public record. Elsewhere on the agenda: a change to the board’s jurisprudence exam on Texas law, an amendment letting the national counseling exam be given in Spanish, and three contested cases from the State Office of Administrative Hearings, the agency that hears state licensing disputes — case 510-26-16605 against Javen Owens, 510-26-16603 against Brooke Powell and 510-26-16604 against Johnny “Juan” Flores. The agenda describes none of the allegations, and the board has made no findings in any of them.

Watch the vice-chair vote and whether the board sends the three rules on unchanged. Meetings are posted afterward to the council’s YouTube channel, which since 2021 has served as the board’s official record in place of written minutes.

Meeting at a glance

Board members

• Steven Hallbauer — presiding member; Rockwall; attorney; public member; term ends 2029.
• Christopher S. Taylor — Dallas; counselor; founder of a counseling group; term ends 2027.
• Carmelia “Lia” Amuna — Killeen; university counseling center director; term ends 2027.
• Loretta J. Bradley — Lubbock; Texas Tech professor of counselor education; term ends 2027.
• Carolyn “Janie” Stubblefield — Dallas; counselor in private practice; term ends 2029.
• James “Brian” Eby — Wichita Falls; counselor and instructor; term ends 2031.
• Wan-Yu “Elisa” Chan — San Antonio; engineering firm president; public member; term ends 2031.
• Corey Rose — Austin; economic development executive; public member; term ends 2031.
• Nadia Stewart — Round Rock; attorney; public member; term ends 2029.

Roster from the council’s board page, checked September 24, 2026, and cross-checked against the board’s May 1, 2026 agenda and the governor’s appointment releases. The site still lists Taylor as vice chair. Occupations Code Section 503.101 sets the board at five licensed counselor members and four public members; which individual holds which seat is drawn from members’ listed credentials. Committee chairs: Bradley on applications and supervision, Stubblefield on rules, Amuna on complaints. Darrel D. Spinks is executive director of the Executive Council. Contact: (512) 305-7700.