Advocacy is at the heart of CTAMFT’s work. Year after year, we have worked alongside our members, legislators, state agencies, our lobbyist, and professional partners to strengthen the Marriage and Family Therapy profession and improve access to mental health care across Connecticut.
From establishing the LMFTA license and creating a bridge for new graduates, to reducing licensure fees, modernizing our Practice Act, expanding opportunities for loan repayment, and advancing insurance and mental health parity protections, these wins represent years of conversations, testimony, relationship-building, persistence, and showing up.
Each milestone matters on its own but together, they tell a much bigger story about what sustained advocacy can accomplish. We can't wait to keep adding to this list with more wins in the future.
2019: LMFTA Developed, creating parity along license lines
2021: Telehealth Parity was passed, increasing access to mental health treatment for all CT residents
2021: Legislative Definitions of "Specialty Mental Health Services" and "Licensed Mental Health Professional" were made to include MFTs
2022: Licensure Fee Reduction was passed, moving closer to parity among MH license fees
2023: LMFTS are Medicare Eligible Providers (effective 2024) which concluded a decades long battle and again increased access to mental health treatment across our country
2023: The 120 Day Bridge for MFT graduates awaiting LMFTA was passed, helping to decrease complications for MFTs to obtain employments
2023: Added MFTs to Loan Repayment Programs
2023: We represented MFTs in Hartford as discussions and concerns around CONNIE were addressed
2024: MFT Practice Act Modernization was passed, moving from a 12 to 24 month of postgraduate experience requirement which aligned us with national standards and helped MFTs with paneling for Medicare
2024: Licensure Fee Reduction/Parity was created across all MH licenses
2025: MH Parity Legislation was passed
2025: Initial legislation was passed regarding MFT License Portability
2026: A healthcare provider payment bill was passed which strengthens provider protections by shortening the claim denial window, requiring cancellation notice, and establishing a 30-day appeal process that defaults in the provider’s favor if not decided
2026: Graduate education loan funding was secured $30 million in state bond funding through CHESLA to help offset federal graduate loan cuts to students in programs including Marriage and Family Therapy
And the work continues and will continue.
Advocacy is rarely one meeting, one bill, or one legislative session. It is the ongoing work of making sure MFTs have a voice at the table and that the value of relational and systemic mental health care is recognized in policy, regulation, reimbursement, and practice. Many of these wins are the culmination of days, weeks, months, years, and decades of work by CTAMFT Board members who volunteer their time to support the work we do in our state and create a system that works with us. These wins also represent our collective voice and the voices of our members and fellow MFTs who submit testimony, share our information, and contact their representatives in Hartford. The best systemic change happens when the whole system works together toward the same goal.
These accomplishments are also a reminder of why membership matters. A strong professional association gives us a stronger collective voice and your membership helps make this work possible. So, thank you for being here along this journey with us.