Update your WMHCA Profile and Privacy Settings
Get ready to make an impact! WMHCA’s Policy and Professional Advocacy Committee is gearing up to plan our priorities for the 2025/26 legislative session, and we need your voice. We’re looking for passionate volunteers to help identify the advocacy issues that matter to mental health counselors across Washington. This is a great opportunity to speak up about what you believe should be front and center in our advocacy work, connect with colleagues, and help shape the future of our profession. If you're ready to make a difference, we’d love to have you on board!
Description:
Polyamory is a type of relationship that assumes the possibility, validity, and worthiness of maintaining romantic, sexual, and intimate relationships with multiple people simultaneously. With an increase in public interest in polyamorous relationships, it is imperative that counselors develop awareness, knowledge, and skills to work competently and ethically with clients seeking and/or in polyamorous relationships. Therefore, the session will present common conceptualizations of polyamory, the diversity of its relationship structures, and the challenges and resilience associated with polyamorous relationships, based on research. Then the presenter will discuss frameworks, strategies, and techniques that counselors can adopt to practice polyamory-affirming counseling.
Objectives:
A portion of the proceeds from this webinar will go to Washington Saige: Washington Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities https://wa-saige.org/
About the Presenter:
Dr. Jiale Man is an Assistant Professor of Counseling at Seattle University and a clinical therapist at Protea Wellness. His research centers on LGBTGEQIAP+ issues and resilience, with a focus on relationship health and diverse relationship configurations. His clinical practices focus on supporting LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals in achieving personal and relational development, addressing common mental health concerns and minority stress, and building community resiliencies.
Registration closes July 16th, 2026
This course is approved for 2 CE hours for LMHCs, LMFTs, LCSWs, and all associate-level licensees in Washington State
Washington Mental Health Association (WMHCA) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 2079. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. WMHCA is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
WMHCA Cancellation Policy
To receive a refund, less a $15 cancellation fee, cancellations must be made by contacting WMHCA at least 48 hours prior to workshop date. There will be no refunds within 48 hours of the workshop date. Please make sure you have the link 24 hours prior to the event starting.
While new and emerging technologies can provide clinicians with powerful and effective clinical tools, such technologies also have the potential to create a range of new challenges. In this workshop we will address the specific legal and ethical implications of the use of artificial intelligence (AI), large language models, and machine learning within clinical practice. We will identify and discuss the evolving standards found in federal law, state law, and in the professional codes of ethics. Participants will gain the ability to identify and implement a legally and ethically sound approach evaluating and implementing new AI technologies in clinical practice.
Participants will be able to:
Identify the current ethical standards relating to clinical use of AI
Identify the evolving legal standards relating to clinical use of AI
Apply federal HIPAA standards to the use of AI powered clinical tools
Create strategies to effectively evaluate the clinical applicability of new technologies
Eric Ström JD, PhD, LMHC is an attorney and Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Seattle, Washington. As an attorney, Eric provides legal counsel, consultation, and guidance to mental health professionals. Eric’s clinical practice is focused on providing counseling services to combat veterans and those in other high-stress professions. Eric currently serves on the American Mental Health Counselors Association Ethics Committee, and is the ethics advisor for the Washington Mental Health Counselors Association. Eric has taught a range of courses in counseling and professional ethics at a variety of graduate and undergraduate programs.
Eric earned a PhD in Counseling at Oregon State University, graduated cum laude from Wayne State University School of Law in Detroit Michigan, earned a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling Psychology from the Northwest School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University Seattle, attended the Hague Academy of International Law in the Hague Netherlands, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics from the University of Michigan.
Registration closes August 2nd, 2026 (space is limited)
This course is approved for 3 CE hours for LMHCs, LMFTs, LCSWs, and all associate-level licensees in Washington State
WMHCA Member Day at the Seattle Reign Women's Soccer game! August 14th, 2026 at 7 pm. Watch the Seattle Reign FC take on the Chicago Stars FC at 7 pm and connect with colleagues in the counseling field!
WMHCA believes that all forms of injustice are interconnected and social justice is an essential aspect of wellness. That belief doesn't just live in our policy statements — it should show up in how we engage our members and what organizations we choose to stand alongside. Reign FC is one of those organizations.
Women's professional soccer, and Reign FC in particular, is built on the same values WMHCA champions. The NWSL and its clubs have long been at the forefront of advocating for gender equity, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ inclusion — not as add-ons, but as core to the game's identity. Reign FC has actively used their platform to advance health equity and break down barriers to wellbeing, and to shine a light on mental health stigma and encourage open, honest conversations about care. They've also committed to community investment in underserved areas, using soccer as a vehicle to support learning and social-emotional wellness for youth in marginalized and under-resourced communities.
By attending the game WMHCA members are showing up for an organization that shares our commitment to dismantling systems of oppression, uplifting marginalized communities, and centering mental and community health in everything they do.
A Reign FC WMHCA Member Day is more than a fun outing. It's an opportunity to put our JEDI values into action, celebrate an organization whose mission echoes our own, and remind our members that the work of justice and healing extends beyond the therapy room — and sometimes, that's exactly where community is built.
CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS
Space is limited
Tickets purchased with the link are discounted.
Please invite friends and family. You don't have to be a member to attend.
August 14 is the Reign's Pride Match
Washington is one of the few states without a dedicated governing board for counselors — and that's something WMHCA is working to change. Right now, regulation of Licensed Mental Health Counselors (LMHCs) falls under the Department of Health alongside many other fields, leaving counselors without a unified voice to shape the standards, ethics, and policies that define our work. A governing board — made up of practicing counselors and public members — would change that by overseeing licensure, guiding continuing education, supporting supervisors, and ensuring our profession is represented in legislative and regulatory decisions. Join us for a Virtual Town Hall to hear what's being developed, ask questions, and help shape the future of counseling in Washington. This is your opportunity to be part of the conversation.
Contact | Privacy Policy | Site Map | Terms of Use
2024 © WHMCA Washington Mental Health Counselors Association is a 501(c)6 non-profit organization.
