For California associates · AMFT, ASW and APCC
Everything a California associate needs, in one place.
In short
What do I need while I am a registered associate in California?
The whole requirement in one bar, and every page on this site written for somebody counting hours
The 3,000 is almost never what decides your date22 guides for the years between registration and your license — the hours and what counts toward them, why employers can or cannot hire you, what the work pays county by county, the loan repayment nobody mentions, and the Board’s own numbers on exams and waiting times. Every figure comes from a named source, and the whole site is free.
Start hereWhere you areWhat this room asksAll 22 guidesThe rules behind it
Start here
Four questions bring most people to this page.
Written for AMFTs. Where a rule differs for an ASW or an APCC, the page says so and links to the difference.
Where you are
Which requirement is actually holding you up?
Four numbers off your own log. The bar is the 3,000; the tiles are the sub-totals underneath it, and one of them stops more people than the rest.
Stays in this browser · nothing is sent
— · 0% of the way. The relational requirement is marked because it is the one people reach 3,000 without: 500 hours with couples, families and children, inside the 1,750. Everything here is your arithmetic, not the Board’s record.
The four requirements, and where they come from
3,000 hours over at least 104 weeks, of which at least 1,750 are direct clinical counseling and at least 500 of those are with couples, families and children. No more than 40 hours in any seven days, and no more than 1,250 of nonclinical time.
All of it is § 4980.43(c). The full arithmetic, including what happens to hours gained before your degree, is on the calculator and the practicum page.
What this room asks
Three questions, and the pages that answer them.
Taken from the shape of what actually gets posted in the pre-licensed groups, not from a taxonomy. Nobody is quoted and nobody is identified.
“Hundreds of hours in, and nobody will hire me.”
It is a billing rule, not your hour count.
Medi-Cal names registered associates as a billable staff type. Most commercial payers do not, which is why the jobs are concentrated where they are — and it has nothing to do with how far along you are.
Read it →“Am I supposed to be doing this unpaid?”
The wage claim is a real one, and the Board is not where you file it.
Non-clinical time an employer requires is time worked. The claim goes to the Labor Commissioner, there is a form, and there is a deadline.
Read it →“Will hours from another state count?”
Yes, with conditions — and the Board has answered this five times.
The answer sits in a PDF nobody links to. What travels, what does not, and what your supervisor has to be.
Read it →All 22 guides
Everything on this site written for somebody counting hours.
The line under each title is not the page’s summary — it is what that page tells somebody at this stage specifically. The same page says something different to a student or to a licensed therapist.
Your hours, and what counts toward them
Getting hired, and what it pays
Money back on your loans
The Board: exams, fees and waiting
The market you are qualifying into
Also for this stage
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The rule behind the bar
This page is a door, not a record. Every figure you enter is computed in your browser and nothing is stored or sent — reload the page and it is gone. It is your arithmetic against the statute, and it is not the Board’s count of your hours; only your supervisor’s signed forms are that. Written for AMFTs, with the differences for ASWs and APCCs on the pages linked above. Nothing here is legal advice.
