Is Your Virtual Assistant a Certified Mental Health Professional?

Here at Move Forward Virtual Assistants, we are thrilled to announce that our entire team of virtual assistants are now Certified Mental Health Professionals (CMHPs)!

We’re the first in the industry to create and execute this certification process for our Mental Health Virtual Assistants.

This certification is not just a title we created for marketing purposes.

We have built a unique, comprehensive, and challenging certification process that combines coursework and practicum hours.

As of August 2024 every new employee must complete their certification within 4 weeks to remain on the MFVA team. And as of September 2024, all current team members have earned their CMHP certification as well.

What is the certification process?

The certification consists of 90 hours of coursework, plus quizzes, essays, project assignments, practicum hours, and a final exam. . A score of 93 or higher is required on every quiz, or they will have to retake it.

Coursework

The coursework includes several modules on MFVA’s internal policies, our core values, our service promise to our clients, our expectations for our team’s professionalism, and how to grow and nurture client relationships.

Then they move into two very in-depth modules on Mental Health basics, which cover common terminology, types of providers, most common mental health diagnosis, levels of care, types of treatment, and common therapeutic modalities. 

They also learn about mental health stigma and how to combat it, the legal and ethical considerations they may encounter while providing administrative support to practices, and diversity and inclusion topics.

The coursework also includes training on how to interact with patients on the phone who may be in active mental health crises. The training makes it very clear that our virtual assistants are not therapists and cannot offer advice or diagnosis, but we find that when they have a current and working knowledge of the field of mental health, they are the most equipped to provide superior support to our client’s practices.  

While completing their 90 hours of coursework, the virtual assistant has weekly meetings with our Director of Team Experience - Lorinda Marland - to discuss their progress, receive mentorship, get feedback on their projects and quizzes, and engage in role plays to practice various scenarios.

Practicum

But the certification process doesn’t end with coursework! It also requires 40 practicum hours. These practicum hours include a combination of shadowing experienced team members and providing vacation coverage for team members on PTO.

The team members who are shadowed and receive coverage from the certifying team member then provide feedback to the Director of Team Experience on their observations and any areas for improvement or areas where the certifying VA excelled.

This allows our Director of Team Experience to get a full view of the certifying VA’s ability to apply what they’ve learned as well as their ability to problem solve and respond to situations in real-time. 

Impact

Our team members report feeling extremely prepared to start working directly with clients after certification, and we’ve seen certified team members be able to move to a full client load more quickly and with greater confidence than we saw with team members before we started the certification.

The onboarding process between a virtual assistant and a new client also goes much more quickly and smoothly with certified VA’s versus the pre-certification process. This means that the VA’s are able to build trust and take on more administrative tasks faster, making them of more value to the clients more quickly than ever before.

What’s Next

Our VAs who are already certified will be required to do an annual certification refresh by going through any modules that have been added or updated since their certification. They may also be required to acquire additional education hours.

In 2025, we are going to adapt the certification training to be used by assistants outside of MFVA. We know that a virtual assistant isn’t the right fit for every practice, and we want those practices to have access to the certification process and superior administrative support.

We will also continue to adjust and adapt our certification process to ensure it is always current and built to create the most competent and capable VA possible for our clients. 

If you’re ready to bring a Certified Mental Health Professional into your practice, you can schedule a discovery call HERE.