California Board of Behavioral Sciences
What counts as direct client contact.
The test isn't whether a client was in the room. It's what kind of work you did, and the ASW track calls that work something else entirely.
Start here
The clinical hours each track asks for
Your 3,000 hours sort into two piles. The clinical pile has a floor you have to reach. The non-clinical pile has a ceiling you can't count past. Every hour you log lands in one or the other.
All three California license tracks work that way. What changes is the name of the clinical pile and how big it is. It also changes what the Board puts on each side of the line.
One asymmetry matters before you read the table. Your clinical minimum has no ceiling above it. Your non-clinical ceiling has no floor under it. Nothing stops you reaching 3,000 with clinical hours alone.
| What is being compared | AMFT (LMFT track) | APCC (LPCC track) | ASW (LCSW track) |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the Board calls your clinical hours | Direct Clinical Counseling Experience | Direct Clinical Counseling Experience | Clinical Social Work Services |
| Hours you need in it | Minimum 1,750 | Minimum 1,750 | Minimum 2,000 |
| A smaller minimum inside it | 500 hours diagnosing and treating couples, families, and children | None | 750 hours of face-to-face individual or group psychotherapy, in the context of clinical social work services |
| The non-clinical ceiling | Maximum 1,250 | Maximum 1,250 | Maximum 1,000 |
| The clinical column on your weekly log | A. Direct Counseling with Individuals, Groups, Couples or Families | A. Direct Counseling with Individuals, Groups, Couples or Families | A. Clinical Psychosocial Diagnosis, Assessment, and Treatment, including Individual or Group Psychotherapy or Counseling |
| Where client-centered advocacy goes | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Non-clinical |
The ASW bucket has a different name, and it isn't a formality
On the AMFT and APCC tracks the Board's category is Direct Clinical Counseling Experience. Everyone reaches for "direct client contact" instead, us included. On those two tracks it's close enough to steer by. On the ASW track the category is Clinical Social Work Services, and the phrase stops steering.
Client-centered advocacy is the case that proves it. That's the work of identifying and accessing resources for a client, or getting them the services they need. Twelve hours of it is twelve hours spent on a client, often in the room with them. The Board still puts it on the non-clinical side, and it does that on all three tracks.
So the test was never whether the client was there. It's what kind of work you did. Read the phrase literally on any track and you'll count advocacy hours toward a minimum they don't reach.
The reference
What lands in your clinical column
Most rows read the same on all three tracks.
Where the AMFT and APCC tracks differ, it's only about which smaller minimum the hour also feeds. The ASW track is the one that differs on the question itself. Its non-clinical list is shorter. Clinical means each track's own category from the table above.
| The hour you logged | AMFT | APCC | ASW |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual therapy with a client | Clinical Also feeds the 500 when the client is a child. | Clinical | Clinical Also feeds the 750. |
| Group therapy | Clinical | Clinical | Clinical Also feeds the 750. |
| A couples or family session | Clinical Also feeds the 500. | Clinical | Clinical |
| A session delivered by telehealth | Clinical | Clinical | Clinical |
| Writing progress or process notes | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Not named Your supervisor decides. |
| Writing clinical reports | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Not named Your supervisor decides. |
| Psychological testing | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Not named Your supervisor decides. |
| Client-centered advocacy | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Non-clinical |
| Supervision you sat in | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Non-clinical |
| Attending a workshop, seminar or conference | Non-clinical | Non-clinical | Non-clinical |
Non-clinical isn't a euphemism for wasted. Every hour on the non-clinical side counts toward your 3,000, up to the ceiling in the first table. It doesn't move your clinical minimum. The weekly log walkthrough shows where each column then goes on the page.
Three rows read "Not named" for ASWs. The ASW non-clinical list is shorter than the other two. It doesn't mention notes, reports or testing. That isn't the Board saying those hours don't count. It's the Board never saying which side they fall on, and your supervisor making the call.
The minimum inside the minimum
Two of the three tracks nest a second, smaller minimum inside the clinical one. It isn't a second pile of hours. It's a rule about the hours you already owe. Some of them have to be a particular kind of work.
| Track | The subset | What it has to be |
|---|---|---|
| AMFT | 500 hours | Diagnosing and treating couples, families, and children. Inside the 1,750, not on top of it. |
| APCC | None | The LPCC track sets no smaller minimum inside its 1,750. |
| ASW | 750 hours | Face-to-face individual or group psychotherapy, in the context of clinical social work services. Inside the 2,000, not on top of it. |
AMFTs: children are in the 500, and the shorthand drops them
The Board's own row reads "couples, families, and children." Almost everyone says "couples and families." That's narrower than the rule, and it can leave you undercounting your own hours.
Read it the right way and a child you see individually is already inside the 500. So is a couple. So is a family. The full AMFT hour requirements cover what else has to sit inside your 3,000.
APCCs: there's no subset, and no setting rule either
Your 1,750 hours have nothing smaller nested inside them. There's no couples and families figure, no crisis figure, no group figure.
There used to be one rule here. It was about where you worked rather than what you did. You had to earn 150 of your hours in a hospital or a community mental health setting. AB 462 removed it on January 1, 2022. The current handbook prints no trace of it. If you're reading an older printout that still lists it, that's why.
The same bill removed the extra training an LPCC used to need before treating couples and families. That was always a rule about licensed practice, not about counting. Couples and family hours have counted toward your 1,750 either way. The Board's replacement is competence. Does the practice area sit inside your education, training or experience?
See the full APCC hour requirements for the rest of what your 3,000 has to contain.
ASWs: the 750 is narrower than the 2,000
The 2,000 is broad. It covers clinical psychosocial diagnosis, assessment and treatment, which is most of what an ASW does with a caseload.
The 750 is one kind of work inside that: face-to-face individual or group psychotherapy, provided in the context of clinical social work services. Assessment and diagnosis hours reach the 2,000 without reaching the 750. So a placement heavy on intake and light on ongoing therapy pulls the two apart. You can be well ahead on one figure and behind on the other.
The Board has left one thing here unsettled. The 750 is the only figure in the whole scheme that says "face-to-face." Nothing in the law defines that phrase for this particular line. Telehealth hours count toward your supervised experience without any limit. Whether they reach the 750 is a question the Board hasn't answered. Raise it with your supervisor rather than assuming either way.
A second wrinkle shows up the moment you open the handbook. Its supervision rows use the phrase "direct clinical counseling." A footnote defines that as clinical psychosocial diagnosis, assessment and treatment. On this track that phrase covers the whole 2,000, not the 750. It doesn't mean what it means on the other two tracks.
Who supervised you is a different question
People mistake two rules for category rules, because they're also numbers carved out of the same 3,000. On the ASW track, a licensed clinical social worker has to supervise at least 1,700 of your hours. Hours of any kind qualify. A licensed educational psychologist can supervise at most 1,200 hours, and that ceiling applies on all three tracks. Neither rule asks what kind of work you did. They ask who signed for it, so an hour can satisfy one and not the other.
See the full ASW hour requirements →Commonly misread
Client work that isn't clinical work
Five kinds of hour catch people, and they catch them for the same reason. Each one is real professional work. Most of it is about a specific client. None of it reaches your clinical minimum.
All three tracks name the last two below on the non-clinical side. Only the AMFT and APCC tracks name the first three. Those are exactly the three the ASW list leaves out.
- Progress and process notes. The most common surprise, because the note is about the session you counted. The session is clinical. Writing it up isn't.
- Clinical reports. Same rule, longer document. The word "clinical" in the name doesn't move it across the line.
- Psychological testing. Administering and scoring tests, even with the client sitting in front of you.
- Client-centered advocacy. Finding a client resources, or getting them the services they need. The ASW weekly log names it in the non-clinical column outright. It never counts toward the extra supervision a heavy week owes, either.
- Workshops, seminars, training sessions and conferences. They count toward your 3,000 and never toward your clinical minimum. They also have to relate to your license, and your supervisor has to approve them. Attending one is the only item on this side that never obliges supervision on its own.
Your supervision belongs on this side too. One unit is an hour of individual or triadic supervision, or two hours of group. Direct supervisor contact is one of the items the Board lists in the non-clinical row. It shares one ceiling with everything above, and it gets no allowance of its own.
The lists don't match, and your supervisor rules on the rest
On the AMFT and APCC tracks the non-clinical list is closed, and word for word it's the same list. The law says the maximum consists of those items rather than includes them. That's a deliberate contrast with how the same law describes your scope of practice.
The ASW list is a different list. It names client-centered advocacy, consultation, evaluation, research, workshops and your supervision. It never says whether that's all of them. Notes, reports and psychological testing aren't on it, and they aren't on the clinical side either.
There's no third pile for them to fall into. 2,000 plus 1,000 is exactly 3,000, and your weekly log totals two columns into one. Every credited hour has to land on one side. So the law forces a choice it never makes for you.
Nobody at the Board will make that choice on your behalf. Your supervisor categorizes the hours, because your supervisor oversees the work. Their signature also goes on the category breakdown. Every hour also has to fall inside the scope of practice of the license you're working toward.
Co-therapy, case management, no-shows, hotline shifts, psychoeducation groups: that's the answer to all of them. Ask your supervisor, and ask early enough that a year of hours isn't riding on it.
Paperwork still owes you a unit of supervision
People merge this pair of rules. They ask two different questions.
Your clinical minimum asks one question: what kind of work was this? Your weekly supervision requirement asks a different one: was any experience credited at that setting this week?
So a week of nothing but progress notes still owes at least one unit of supervision at that setting. That holds on all three tracks. Notes aren't in the one carve-out. That carve-out covers attending workshops, seminars, training sessions and conferences, and nothing else. How California counts your hours works through the weekly supervision rule in full.
What those same hours do to your clinical minimum is the other question. The answer depends on your track. Either way, the week still owes its supervision.
SparkHours knows which column an hour belongs in
Pick the kind of work when you log an hour. SparkHours files it against the right category for your track. That includes the subset you have to write in two places and count once. It tracks your 1,750 or your 2,000 separately from your 3,000. The floor you have to reach is a number you can see.
See what SparkHours tracks →Where this comes from
Every figure here is the Board's own. The LMFT breakdown of required experience sits at handbook pages 20 and 21. The LPCC one is at page 15, and the LCSW one at pages 16 and 17. Those are the page numbers printed in the footer. The PDF page is two higher, which is worth knowing if you click through and jump.
The LCSW handbook needs one caution. It reproduces an older version of the ASW weekly log. The column headings printed inside it don't match the form the Board currently hands out. Download the form itself rather than copying the one in the book.
LMFT handbook
The 1,750 and the 500-hour subset sit at pages 20 and 21.
Opens bbs.ca.gov in a new tabLPCC handbook
The 1,750 and the non-clinical ceiling sit at page 15.
Opens bbs.ca.gov in a new tabLCSW handbook
Clinical Social Work Services and its 750-hour subset sit at pages 16 and 17.
Opens bbs.ca.gov in a new tabCommon questions
The hard part isn't logging. It's sorting.
SparkHours puts every hour in the right category for your license track. It turns your weeks into the forms the Board asks for. Start with a 14-day free trial. No credit card required.
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