MMHCA · Michigan Mental Health Counselors Association
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MMHCA Michigan Mental Health Counselors Association Member login Join
A collage of MMHCA's work: a counselor with a therapy dog, board members presenting signed legislation with state officials, counselors rallying with placards reading Help Us Help Others and LPCs Save Lives, the Michigan State Capitol, a telehealth session, and the MMHCA seal beside a gold silhouette of Michigan

The statewide association for Michigan LPCs

Michigan counselors, carrying it together.

Licensed Professional Counselors carry an enormous share of this state’s mental health care. MMHCA is how they carry it together. A voice in Lansing, plain answers when the rules change, and colleagues who have already solved the problem in front of you.

The association in figures

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Counselors gathered outside the Michigan State Capitol holding placards reading Help Us Help Others and LPCs Save Lives

Turnout is the part no lobbyist can substitute for

In 2019, two thousand counselors testified in person. The rule that would have taken diagnosis away never took effect.

How that happened
MMHCA board secretary Carol Berger giving testimony on House Bill 4981 before the Michigan House Health Policy Committee

Mission and purpose

In the room while it’s still a draft.

Every year, decisions in Lansing and in insurer policy rooms change what Michigan counselors may do, who they may serve, and whether they get paid for it. MMHCA exists to be there while those decisions are still drafts.

MMHCA reads the bills before they move, testifies when they reach committee, and gathers the evidence that turns a professional grievance into a policy argument. It also does the unglamorous part: telling members what changed and what to do about it.

If you have a question or want to get involved, please reach out. Volunteers are how this association does everything it does.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer holds up an enrolled Michigan House bill after signing it, flanked by legislators and counseling advocates applauding
Lansing · MMHCA archive Governor Whitmer signs legislation MMHCA fought for. Milestones like this are built through the behind-the-scenes work of monitoring committee calendars, tracking legislation, and advocating every step of the way.

Where we are putting our weight

Six fronts. Five already won or moving.

Most recent first. Each carries its status and the date it last changed.

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Statewide

Eighty-three counties. One Capitol.

The rules that govern a counselor in Ontonagon and a counselor in Wayne are written in the same building. Scope of practice, licensure, Medicaid policy, payer contracts. All of it is decided in Lansing.

That is the whole argument for a statewide association. A counselor in a two-clinician practice in the Upper Peninsula has no realistic way to be in a committee room on a Tuesday morning. Together, counselors can afford to have someone there every week.

It also cuts the other way. Legislators respond to constituents, not to associations, so members in every part of the state are what make the advocacy work.

A relief map of Michigan divided into its counties, each labeled, with a gold star marking Lansing in Ingham County
Michigan’s 83 counties, with Lansing marked. MMHCA works for counselors in all of them.
The Michigan State Capitol in Lansing at dusk, lit from below, with the Austin Blair statue and marigold beds in the foreground
The Michigan State Capitol, Lansing. Licensure rules, Medicaid policy and scope of practice are all decided here.
A counselor's office with afternoon light through the window, two chairs and a low table

The business side of practice

Fee setting, payer credentialing, clawbacks. Members work through these together every month.

What membership does

Advocacy, education, community. None of them arrive free.

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Every month · included with membership

Peer consultation, Medicare and private practice Q&A, and a supervisor group for Supervisor and Counselor Educator members.

Pick a session to see what it covers and who leads it. Zoom registration for these sessions is a member benefit: no password or portal login, just register with the email on your membership record and the board confirms it against the roster. Larger trainings and events carry tiered registration, with member and student rates.

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Who it is for
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Board meetings are open to every member. Fourth Friday of each month at 10am on Zoom, same link every time. If you are thinking about volunteering, that is the easiest way to start.

Join the next board meeting

The library

Guides and recordings, waiting for you.

Your board keeps adding to this. Guides, recorded board meetings and legislative reports, and the material that answers the questions members actually ask.

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First time here? Your membership record already exists, but you choose your own password once before the portal will open. The portal page walks through both doors, and lists the five things that usually go wrong.

Signed in as a current member. Dues and sign-in are handled by the association’s membership system.

The work, and who does it

Counseling in Michigan looks like this.

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A two-lane highway receding through forest with patchy snow and no vehicles in sight

Who gets to do this work

In parts of Michigan the nearest counselor is an hour away. Widening who can enter this profession, and stay in it, is how that changes.

Everyone belongs here

Diversity, equity and inclusion

MMHCA is committed to a diverse, equitable and inclusive community within the field of mental health counseling.

We believe diversity in all its forms, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and ability status, strengthens our profession and our ability to serve our communities. That shows up in our values, our policies and our practices.

The Bridging Initiative

Our signature program for new graduates and early-career professionals. The early years are hard in ways a graduate program does not prepare you for: credentialing, insurance panels, supervision documentation, fee setting.

Bridging closes that gap with mentorship and a network that is already there before you need it.

A collage of MMHCA members in seminar and consultation settings: counselors of many ages, races and backgrounds, including a woman in a hijab taking notes, reading an MMHCA legislative update, discussing ethical decision-making, and talking across tables

What membership includes

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Everyone belongs here

MMHCA protects counselors like me.

Michigan’s counselors are not one kind of person, and neither are the people they see. Scope of practice, licensure, reimbursement: every fight on this site is a fight about whether all of them can keep working, and whether their clients can keep being seen.

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Illustrative portraits, not photographs of members.

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MMHCA Implicit Bias Taskforce special report cover. A portrait, half of it composed from the words perspectives, language, experiences, physical abilities, gender, age, skills, sexual orientation, thinking styles, race, culture, job level, religion and ethnicity, above the line: we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. The report is subtitled Recognizing, Understanding, Transforming, and examines the impact of unconscious bias while advancing equity, inclusion and fairness across the profession and communities.

The Implicit Bias Taskforce

Michigan requires implicit bias training at every license renewal. The taskforce examines how unconscious bias shapes clinical decisions, and MMHCA is building a course around Michigan’s standards for the clinicians the mandate covers. See the course catalog

Board of directors

Nine volunteers, every one of them working in this profession.

Every one of them is a working Michigan counselor, educator or practice owner, and every one is a volunteer. Reach any of them directly. That is the point of publishing this.

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From our Facebook page

The fastest place we post.

When a rule moves or a hearing is scheduled, Facebook is usually where it lands first. The feed beside this pulls live from the association page, so it is current whether or not anyone has updated this site.

Members also get the same alerts by email, so having Facebook is not required.

Live feed from facebook.com/MichiganMHCA. If your browser blocks third-party content, the feed will not appear here. Open the page directly.

Operations

Commitment to transparency

Transparency to the members we represent sits at the core of how MMHCA operates. Accounts are guided by outside legal and accounting professionals, statements are disclosed publicly, and the board holds itself to the governance policies in the bylaws. Our financial records are open to our members, providing full transparency into every dollar that comes into the association and how it is spent, entirely toward protecting and strengthening the counseling profession.

The current bylaws, amended and adopted March 2026, are published here in full alongside the two prior versions.

The monthly briefing

Know before it lands on you.

Every month MMHCA publishes a regulatory briefing: what changed, what is about to, and what a working counselor needs to do about it.

It is written by counselors who read the bulletins so you do not have to: MDHHS policy, CMS rules, LARA notices, payer bulletins and the bills moving in Lansing, in plain language with the dates that matter.

Free, and you do not have to be a member to receive it.

What a recent briefing covered

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Michigan LPCs are saying

“They genuinely want what’s best for counselors and the community they serve. So incredibly proud to be associated with this organization.”

Melissa J. Anthony, MA, LPC
Better Days Counseling and Consultation
mibetterdays.com

From $65 a year. Here is where it goes.

Open to LPCs, LLPCs, graduate students, counselor educators, supervisors and retired counselors across Michigan. Dues fund the lobbyist first, and then the research and the guides.

Before you join

Questions counselors ask us.

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