Kentucky Continuing Education Requirements for Mental Health Professionals

Kentucky’s continuing education rules don’t fit neatly into a single hour count the way many states do. Counselors renew annually with a relatively low 10-hour base requirement, but that number is misleading on its own — layered on top are several staggered, non-annual mandates covering suicide assessment, domestic violence training, and Kentucky law, each running on its own separate timeline rather than resetting every renewal.

The biggest thing to understand about Kentucky is that these staggered requirements aren’t unique to counseling — similar patterns show up for social workers and psychologists too, just with different specific timelines. Kentucky was also an early adopter of the Counseling Compact, having enacted it back in 2022, which matters if you’re a counselor considering practice across state lines.

This guide explains the current Kentucky continuing education requirements for LPCCs, LCSWs, LMFTs, and psychologists, including required CE hours, ethics requirements, renewal deadlines, approved providers, and other Kentucky-specific rules to help you stay compliant.

Kentucky Continuing Education Requirements

Kentucky stands out for its annual renewal cycle across counseling, and for layering several distinct, staggered training mandates (suicide assessment, domestic violence, state law) on top of the base CE requirement rather than folding them into a single annual total (Kentucky Board of Licensed Professional Counselors, n.d.).

License Type	CE Requirements	Renewal / Special Requirements	Official Licensing Board
Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC)	10 CE hours every year	No standalone annual ethics-hour mandate, but licensees must complete a one-time 6-hour suicide assessment/treatment/management course (within first year, repeating every 6 years), 3 hours domestic violence training (within first 3 years), and 3 hours of Kentucky law every 3 years.	Kentucky Board of Licensed Professional Counselors
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)	30 CE hours every 3 years	Minimum 3 hours ethics. One-time 3-hour domestic violence/elder abuse training in the first 3-year cycle. 6 hours suicide assessment every 6 years. 1.5 hours pediatric abusive head trauma every 6 years. Board-approved supervisors need 3 hours in supervision each cycle.	Kentucky Board of Social Work
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT)	15 CE hours every year	Separate board from LPCC. Confirm current content-area requirements directly with the Board.	Kentucky Board of Licensure for Marriage and Family Therapists
Licensed Psychologist (PhD / PsyD)	39 CE hours every 3 years	Minimum 3 hours ethics or risk management. 6 hours suicide assessment/treatment/management within the first year of licensure and every 6 years thereafter. Supervisors need 3 hours in supervision. Up to 12 hours may be distance learning.	Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychologists

Clinical Note: Kentucky’s staggered mandates — suicide assessment training due in year one and then again every 6 years, domestic violence training due within your first 3 years, law training due every 3 years — apply across multiple professions here, not just counseling. These don’t reset on a clean cycle the way your base CE hours do, so a spreadsheet or calendar reminder tracking each requirement’s own due date is genuinely worth setting up for Kentucky specifically.

Kentucky License Renewal Requirements

Kentucky’s four licenses renew on different cycles and through different boards, which adds real complexity if you hold more than one.

LPCC License Renewal

Administered by the Kentucky Board of Licensed Professional Counselors. Renewal is annual with a fixed deadline of October 31 every year, per the Board’s own renewal form and KRS 335.535. The renewal fee is $150, and a 60-day grace period runs through December 31 at a higher $175 fee. Credentials not renewed by December 31 are terminated entirely — there’s no reinstatement path, only a full reapplication. All CE hours must still be completed by October 31 itself; the grace period only covers filing the paperwork.

LCSW License Renewal

Administered by the separate Kentucky Board of Social Work. Current renewal fees are tiered by license level: $75 for LSW, $125 for CSW, and $200 for LCSW. Renewal runs on a 3-year cycle rather than annually; confirm your specific individual deadline directly with the Board, as it’s tied to your original licensure date rather than one fixed calendar day.

LMFT License Renewal

Administered by the separate Kentucky Board of Licensure for Marriage and Family Therapists. Renewal is annual, similar to LPCC, but Kentucky’s LMFT-specific sources don’t specify one uniform calendar deadline the way LPCC’s October 31 date is documented — confirm your specific renewal date directly with the Board.

Psychologist License Renewal

Administered by the separate Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychologists, on a 3-year cycle. Up to 12 of the 39 required hours may be completed via distance learning. Confirm your specific renewal deadline directly with the Board.

Kentucky Approved CE Providers

Whether you’re looking for Kentucky online continuing education or in-person Kentucky continuing education courses, Kentucky recognizes CE from national accreditors alongside a genuinely active bench of state associations:

Accreditor / Association	Who It’s For	Recognized For
National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC)	LPCCs	Widely accepted for LPCC renewal
Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) / NASW	LCSWs	Accepted for LCSW renewal
APA-approved sponsors	Licensed Psychologists	The standard for psychologist CE in Kentucky
Kentucky Mental Health Counselors Association (KMHCA)	LPCCs	State-level CE, plus regular updates on Kentucky laws and regulations affecting LPCCs specifically
Kentucky Psychological Association (KPA)	Licensed Psychologists	Representing Kentucky psychology since 1932, with a dedicated CE planning and development committee
NASW Kentucky Chapter	LCSWs	Nine regional branches across 120 Kentucky counties, offering state-level CE and advocacy
Kentucky Society for Clinical Social Work	LCSWs	Listed directly among the Kentucky Board of Social Work’s own recognized associations

Note that Kentucky doesn’t appear to have a dedicated statewide LMFT membership association the way it does for counseling, psychology, and social work — LMFTs should rely primarily on national AAMFT resources and the Board of Licensure for Marriage and Family Therapists directly. For a broader look at how CE approval works across all license types and states, see our full guide to continuing education for mental health professionals.

Kentucky-Specific Considerations

A few details worth knowing beyond the base CE requirements:

Kentucky Was an Early Counseling Compact Adopter

Kentucky enacted the Counseling Compact on April 8, 2022 (House Bill 65), becoming the 9th state to do so — well ahead of many states that only joined more recently. Enactment and full operational status are different milestones, though; confirm current live status directly with the Counseling Compact before assuming privileges are immediately usable, since implementation has rolled out gradually on a state-by-state basis nationally.

Kentucky Participates in PSYPACT

Kentucky psychologists have PSYPACT access, allowing telepsychology practice across other PSYPACT-participating states. Several Kentucky-based practices specifically advertise PSYPACT-based telehealth availability across dozens of other states, reflecting how integrated this compact has become in the state’s psychology practice landscape.

Staggered Mandates Apply Beyond Counseling

It’s worth repeating because it’s easy to miss: Kentucky’s staggered training requirements (suicide assessment, domestic violence, abusive head trauma) apply to LCSWs and psychologists too, not just LPCCs — just with different specific hour counts and timelines for each profession. Don’t assume that because you’ve tracked one profession’s staggered schedule correctly, a colleague in a different Kentucky license is on the same timeline.

New Licensee vs. Renewing Licensee

A few distinctions worth knowing depending on where you are in your Kentucky licensure timeline:

• New LPCCs must complete their one-time 6-hour suicide assessment course within their first year of licensure and their 3-hour domestic violence training within their first 3 years — both due earlier in a career than the recurring 6-year cycle that applies afterward.
• New psychologists face the same first-year suicide assessment deadline as LPCCs, with the requirement then repeating every 6 years for the remainder of their career.
• Board-approved supervisors in both social work and psychology need dedicated supervision-specific CE hours each cycle, and having a clear clinical supervision agreement in place from the outset helps define expectations for both supervisor and supervisee.

CE Tracker Templates for Mental Health Professionals

Even with a clear picture of your state’s requirements, actually staying on top of continuing education across a full renewal cycle is a different challenge — tracking which hours you’ve completed, which mandated categories still need attention, where you’ve saved your certificates, and when your actual deadline hits. A CE tracker template solves this by giving you one place to log activities as you complete them, monitor progress against your specific requirements, and pull everything together when it’s time to submit your renewal — rather than reconstructing two years of CE history in a panic the week before your license expires.

Get started with the free CE Tracker Template to organize your current renewal cycle, or manage your complete CE renewal process from planning through submission with this comprehensive CE Tracker Template (pictured above).

Final Thoughts on Kentucky CE Requirements

Kentucky’s low annual hour totals can create a false sense of simplicity — the real complexity lives in the staggered, multi-year mandates layered on top, which don’t reset on the same clock as your base CE and are easy to lose track of if you’re only checking your annual hour count. A dedicated tracking system for these specific deadlines, separate from your general CE log, is worth setting up early in a Kentucky career rather than reconstructing it later.

Kentucky’s early move into the Counseling Compact also reflects a state that’s been ahead of the curve on interstate practice access — worth factoring in if multi-state practice is part of your longer-term plans.

References

• Kentucky Board of Licensed Professional Counselors. (n.d.). Home. Resource
• Kentucky Board of Social Work. (n.d.). Licensure. Resource
• Kentucky Board of Social Work. (n.d.). Associations. Resource
• Kentucky Board of Licensure for Marriage and Family Therapists. (n.d.). Home. Resource
• Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychologists. (n.d.). Home. Resource
• Counseling Compact. (n.d.). Kentucky joins Counseling Compact. Resource
• Kentucky Mental Health Counselors Association. (n.d.). Home. Resource
• Kentucky Psychological Association. (n.d.). Home. Resource