California Board of Behavioral Sciences
The BBS Weekly Log of Experience Hours, explained.
Three licenses, two form numbers, and one form number that means two different PDFs. Here's which log you need, what belongs in every column, and which hours you should never add twice.
SparkHours Team
Published · Updated · 7 min read
Reviewed by Evalin Sosa, AMFT
Which weekly log form do you need?
Your form depends on the license you're working toward. Download the current copy straight from the Board.
AMFT → LMFT
Form 37A-525Weekly Log of Experience Hours, Option 1. Five hour columns, but only two feed the total.
Opens bbs.ca.gov in a new tab (opens in a new tab)APCC → LPCC
Form 37A-638 (APCC version)Four hour columns, two of them supervision sub-categories.
Opens bbs.ca.gov in a new tab (opens in a new tab)ASW → LCSW
Form 37A-638 (ASW version)Five hour columns, but only two feed the total.
Opens bbs.ca.gov in a new tab (opens in a new tab)How the weekly log works
A weekly log isn't one page per week. Each sheet holds a year, a work setting, and a supervisor at the top, then ten rows underneath. You fill one row per week and an eleventh row totals the columns. When the sheet runs out of rows, you start another one. You'll also see it called the weekly summary of hours. Same form, older name.
That header is what decides when you need a new sheet. Change your work setting or change your supervisor, and the hours belong on a fresh log. Each sheet also names a single year in its header, so a new calendar year means a fresh log too. If you see two supervisors at the same setting, each one gets a separate log.
Your supervisor signs each week's row. The Board asks for the signature next to the week it covers.
You keep these logs. The Board asks you to produce them only on request. For experience totals, you submit the Experience Verification form. Retain the original signed weekly logs. Do not submit them to the Board except upon request.
One more limit applies no matter which license you hold: the Board credits at most 40 hours in any seven consecutive days.
The AMFT weekly log (Form 37A-525), column by column
This form has the trickiest structure of the three, because three of its five columns are sub-categories of other columns.
Across all three tables below, these are the forms' own column headings, quoted word for word. Long ones get a short handle above them so you can find your place.
Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
A. Direct counseling Adds to C Printed on the form as: A. Direct Counseling with Individuals, Groups, Couples or Families | Your hours of direct client contact. |
A1. Couples, families, and children Write it, don't add it Printed on the form as: A1. Diagnosis and Treatment of Couples, Families, Children | A sub-category of A, so these hours go here and in A. |
B. Non-Clinical Experience Adds to C | The form's footnote defines it: "Supervision, psychological testing, writing clinical reports, writing progress or process notes, client-centered advocacy, and workshops, seminars, training sessions or conferences." |
B1. Supervision, Individual or Triadic Write it, don't add it | A sub-category of B, written in both places. |
B2. Supervision, Group Write it, don't add it | Also a sub-category of B, also written in both places. |
C. Total Hours Per Week (A + B = C) This is the total | A plus B, and nothing else. |
The total box prints the arithmetic: A + B = C. The counter-intuitive part is that supervision isn't its own counted column. It belongs inside B and gets broken out into B1 and B2 for detail. For the full picture of AMFT hour requirements, see the AMFT hour requirements guide.
The APCC weekly log (Form 37A-638), column by column
This is Form 37A-525 without the couples and families column. Supervision sits inside non-clinical here too, with two sub-category columns underneath it.
Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
A. Direct counseling Adds to C Printed on the form as: A. Direct Counseling with Individuals, Groups, Couples or Families | Your hours of direct client contact. |
B. Non-Clinical Experience Adds to C | The form's footnote defines it: "Supervision, psychological testing, writing clinical reports, progress or process notes, client-centered advocacy, and workshops, seminars, training sessions or conferences." |
B1. Supervision, Individual or Triadic Write it, don't add it | A sub-category of B, written in both places. |
B2. Supervision, Group Write it, don't add it | Also a sub-category of B, also written in both places. |
C. Total Hours Per Week (A + B = C) This is the total | A plus B, and nothing else. |
The form states the arithmetic in the total box itself: A + B = C. Its footnote is explicit that B1 and B2 are sub-categories of B and must not be added again. For the full picture of APCC hour requirements, see the APCC hour requirements guide.
The ASW weekly log (Form 37A-638), column by column
The ASW log prints two unlettered supervision columns before A. They are not labeled B sub-categories. The weekly total is A + B; direct supervisor contact is included in B, so do not add either supervision column to C a second time.
Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
Supervision, Individual or Triadic (no letter) Write it, don't add it | Record individual or triadic supervision here. This leading field is not labeled a sub-category of B. Direct supervisor contact is included in B for the A + B total, so do not add this field to C again. |
Supervision, Group (no letter) Write it, don't add it | Record group supervision here. This leading field is not labeled a sub-category of B. Direct supervisor contact is included in B for the A + B total, so do not add this field to C again. |
A. Clinical diagnosis, assessment, and treatment Adds to C Printed on the form as: A. Clinical Psychosocial Diagnosis, Assessment, and Treatment, including Individual or Group Psychotherapy or Counseling | Your clinical hours. The heading is the definition. |
A1. Individual or Group Psychotherapy Write it, don't add it | A sub-category of A, written in both places. |
B. Advocacy, consultation, training, and supervisor contact Adds to C Printed on the form as: B. Client-centered advocacy, consultation, evaluation, research, workshops, seminars, training sessions or conferences, and direct supervisor contact | This form gives B no short title. Its heading is the whole list, and it ends with direct supervisor contact, which is how supervision reaches your total. |
C. Total Hours Per Week (A + B = C) This is the total | A plus B, and nothing else. The box also prints "Maximum 40 hours/week." |
The total box again reads A + B = C, so only those two columns feed it. Your supervision hours reach the total through B, whose printed heading ends with "and direct supervisor contact." The two supervision columns to the left are there to show the breakdown. For the full picture of ASW hour requirements, see the ASW hour requirements guide.
Five things people get wrong on these logs
Adding the sub-category columns into the total
Every supervision column on all three forms, plus couples hours on Form 37A-525 and psychotherapy hours on the ASW form, already counts inside another column. Add any of them again and you inflate every week on the sheet. Follow the formula printed in the total box and nothing else.
Trusting the PDF to do the math
Some PDF viewers don't run the form's built-in calculations, so the total can print blank or out of date. Check the arithmetic yourself before anyone signs.
Mixing settings or supervisors on one sheet
The header names one work setting and one supervisor. Two jobs, or two supervisors at the same job, means two logs.
Mixing pre-degree and post-degree hours (AMFTs)
Hours from before your degree posted belong on their own log, and post-degree hours go on a separate sheet. Fill in the AMFT Number checkbox and field only on the post-degree ones.
Letting signatures pile up
The Board asks your supervisor to sign each week, next to that week. Supervisors also move on to other jobs, and an unsigned week gets harder to close once yours has left.
What about a week that crosses December 31?
The Board doesn't publish a rule for this, so treat what follows as our reading rather than a requirement.
Each sheet has one year in its header, which suggests a sheet covers a single calendar year. On that reading, a week running from late December into early January splits into two short rows, one at the bottom of the old year's sheet and one at the top of the new year's. Each sheet then matches the year it claims.
This is a formatting question, not an hours question. Your totals are the same, and the Experience Verification form verifies accumulated totals for a supervisor and setting.
About the author
SparkHours Team
The SparkHours team writes practical guidance for California pre-licensed therapists tracking hours toward licensure.