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The Association of Marital & Family Therapy Regulatory Board's (AMFTRB)
examination in Marital and Family Therapy is provided to assist state boards
of examiners in evaluating the knowledge of applicants for licensure or certification.
There is a wide diversity of educational backgrounds among the applicants who
seek licensure or certification in Marriage and Family Therapy. The AMFTRB offers— for
use by its member boards —a standardized examination in order to determine
if these applicants have attained the minimal level of knowledge considered essential
for entry-level professional practice, and in order to provide a common element
in the evaluation of candidates from one state to another. The AMFTRB National
Licensing Exam is offered three times each each year across a month long testing
window. Exams are administered at Sylvan or Thompson-Prometric Learning Centers
across the country.
Please keep in mind that all FSI faculty are ourselves MFT practitioners, MFT
Program Directors and Approved Supervisors of AAMFT. Many of our faculty teach
in and/or are directors of AAMFT accredited training programs. Many of our associated
colleagues were original authors of exam questions. We know and care about the
MFT field. Specifically, there are four main things we do to ensure that we know
the licensure exam well:
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FSI keeps up with AMFTRB,
the exam authors and PES the exam administrator. FSI founders
stay in touch with all changes at the Association of Marital &
Family Therapy Regulatory Boards. FSI knows how to interpret the vague
information given out by AMFTRB and focus you in ways to pass this
exam the first time.
To do this we attend the public sessions of their meetings and
study their publications and are always tuned into the cutting edge of the field of MFT. This combined with all FSI faculty being
AAMFT Approved Supervisors and MFT trainers for well over 30 years,
allows you to receive the benefit of our expertise applied specifically to
your studying in the right way to pass the exam the first time.
From our research we learn such things as the current weighting
of Knowledge & Practice Domains most likely to appear on the
next cycle of exams, the percentage of new questions available in
the database, national and state-by-state pass rates, and long term
trends such as the current move towards a more practice-based emphasis. While the current 2010 exam does not seem to be slated for major revisions, the test is always evolving and being tweaked and you can trust that Family
Solutions will address these changes in our new 5th Edition of the
Study Guide. Remember that the test never looks the same from one cycle to the next. A heavy influence on the practice of MFT will not necessarily be found in the next cycle's exam!
Whenever the test changes, FSI is on top of it. Our current study
materials are completely up-to-date: In the event of a change, we
revise our materials immediately to reflect such changes. If you
have previously bought the Study Guide, email us and we will give
you online access to the latest edition of the Study Guide through
our eStudy Program.
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FSI does original research with FSI exam candidates.
FSI has an on-going program of surveying those who use our Study Materials
to make sure that our materials continue to be the best available
to those preparing the the National MFT Exam. While FSI will never
ask about the specifics of the AMFTRB's copyrighted exam questions
from those of you that have previously taken the exam, we do survey
those who purchase our study materials around the real-world match
of FSI Study Materials and whether our materials helped to best prepare
an exam candidate for their actual testing experience. |
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FSI follows legislative developments across all states as they relate to
MFT licensure. We follow legislative requirements of all US states that regulate
MFT's including California which has a very different exam. When Hawaii passed
it's MFT licensing law in August, 1998, FSI "floated" the idea of an intensive
Workshop in Honolulu on short notice, to meet the law's requirement that all
currently practicing MFT's pass the exam by November of that year (3 months notice!).
Hawaii's MFT's responded with overwhelming appreciation for our ability to "be
there" for them. A Workshop was assembled quickly, and became one of FSI's best
attended and most successful.
FSI was tuned in to the passing of licensure in Pennsylvania in 2000. Together
with the Penn Council for Relationships, a workshop series was assembled and
exam preparation materials made available to PA MFT's. The first two Workshops
in PA were held in October and December, 2000.
Ohio has just come on board with licensing and we are prepared to help all of
you from Ohio get licensed with both our Louisville, KY workshop and study materials
to take the guess work out of your studying.
So has New York now joined the ranks of the 45 states using the exam, and FSI
will offer workshops both in NYC as well as in Rochester to meet your preparation
needs as the exam is now offered in New York State . Visit www.op.nysed.gov for
the latest word on when the test will be offered. Workshops are planned for Louisiana
as the current grandfathering period winds down. Keep an eye out for our upcoming
New Orleans workshop.
A word about California: The California exam is currently a family counseling
exam, though the old California designation of MFCC was changed in 2003 to MFT.
The AMFTRB "national" standard exam is a truly family systems therapy exam. FSI
does not try and work with other disciplines or in California where this exam
is not used. We do not recommend our materials for preparation for the California
exam, and strongly do not recommend the use of any California based materials
for the AMFTRB national standard exam.
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FSI follows theoretical developments
in mainstream MFT associations and publications. FSI faculty attend regional
and national MFT conferences, keeping an eye out for new ways of teaching and
understanding exam content. For example, in recent years we noticed the growth
of interest in David Schnarch's "Passionate Marriage" - Bowenian approach to
sex therapy, and correctly anticipated his work appearing increasingly on the
exam as his predecessor sex therapists Masters & Johnson, Helen Singer Kaplan
and Joseph LoPiccolo's materials began to appear less. We prepared our Workshop
faculty and students correctly.
FSI faculty noticed the appearance of EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) and immediately
attended discussions of this new model so that it could be correctly translated
into our Workshop protocol.
By staying abreast of cutting edge thinking within our field, AAMFT trends related to CORE Competencies and agenda put forth by AMFTRB regarding regulation and the role this board has identified for itself, FSI is constantly tailoring our materials to put you in the best possible position to be prepared. As recently as the fall of 2009, FSI faculty learned about trends relating to the increased weight of DSM-IV
questions, HIPAA, and MFT outcome research. FSI now has
a good idea of how these trends will be effecting the upcoming exams in 2010 and beyond. FSI does the legwork and research, you pass the test, the first time!
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