FINAL BILL REPORT

SHB 1376

C 78 L 13

Synopsis as Enacted

Brief Description: Clarifying the requirement that certain health professionals complete training in suicide assessment, treatment, and management.

Sponsors: House Committee on Health Care & Wellness (originally sponsored by Representatives Orwall, Jinkins, Liias, Angel and Ormsby).

House Committee on Health Care & Wellness

Senate Committee on Health Care

Background:

Beginning January 1, 2014, the following health professions must complete training in suicide assessment, treatment, and management every six years as part of their continuing education requirements:

• certified counselors and certified advisors;

• certified chemical dependency professionals;

• licensed marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, and social workers;

• licensed occupational therapy practitioners;

• licensed psychologists; and

• persons holding a retired active license in any of the affected professions.

The first training must be completed during the first full renewal period after initial licensure or June 7, 2012, whichever is later. A person applying for licensure on or after June 7, 2012, is exempt from the first training if he or she can demonstrate completion, no more than six years prior to initial licensure, of a six-hour training program in suicide assessment, treatment, and management on the best practices registry of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC).

The training must be approved by the relevant disciplining authority and must include the following elements: suicide assessment, including screening and referral, suicide treatment, and suicide management. A disciplining authority may approve a training program that excludes one of the elements if the element is inappropriate for the profession in question based on the profession's scope of practice. A training program that includes only screening and referral must be at least three hours in length. All other training programs must be at least six hours in length.

A disciplining authority may specify minimum training and experience necessary to exempt a practitioner from the training requirement. The Board of Occupational Therapy may exempt its licensees from the requirements by specialty if the specialty in question does not practice primary care and has only brief or limited patient contact. A state or local government employee, or an employee of a community mental health agency or a chemical dependency program, is exempt from the training requirement if he or she has at least six hours of training in suicide assessment, treatment, and management from his or her employer; the training may be provided in one six-hour block or in shorter segments at the employer's discretion.

Summary:

A disciplining authority may approve training that includes only screening and referral elements; the training must be no more than three hours in length.

To be eligible to delay the initial training, a person must demonstrate completion of the training required for his or her profession (instead of a six-hour training program on the Best Practices Registry of the AFSP and the SPRC) no more than six years prior to the application for initial licensure.

The Board of Occupational Therapy may approve training that includes only screening and referral elements if appropriate for occupational therapy practitioners based on practice setting. The Board of Occupational Therapy may also exempt occupational therapy practitioners from the training based on brief or limited patient contact, instead of based on specialty.

References to June 7, 2012, are changed to January 1, 2014, to be consistent with the date upon which the training requirement takes effect.

Votes on Final Passage: