History

The International Registry of Counsellor Education Programs (IRCEP) was developed by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) to respond to a growing request for an international recognition review process for counsellor education programs around the world. Recognizing that the CACREP accreditation standards were not easily applied to or even necessarily appropriate for use by counselling programs external to the US higher education system, the CACREP Board began examining ways it could foster quality assurance for the education and training of counsellors regardless of culture, country, region, work setting, or educational system.

Steering Committee

The result of this examination was CACREP’s decision, in 2008, to establish an international steering committee to assist in the creation of an international registry of programs. This committee was charged with developing registry standards that were culturally sensitive, rigorous, and flexible enough to be used by a variety of educational systems. The committee was further charged with developing the review processes that would be followed to determine a program’s eligibility to seek and become IRCEP approved.

The members of the initial steering committee were selected to represent various regions of the world and included representation from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. In September 2009, this international group of counsellors met in Buenos Aires to finalize the standards and procedures to be implemented as the IRCEP application and approval process.