Reference · the three direct-supervisor-contact sections · read 7 September 2026
Supervision by video is lawful in any setting — and carries a 60-day meeting the supervisor must document.
“Face-to-face contact” in the supervision statutes means “in-person contact, contact via two-way, real-time videoconferencing, or some combination of these.” That sentence is the whole permission, and it now has no sunset. The condition attached to it is the part that goes unmentioned: within 60 days of the start of supervision the supervisor has to meet the supervisee, assess whether video supervision is appropriate, write the result down, and stop using video if the answer is no. Same rule, three sections, one for each license.
What the sections say →What the sections say
One sentence permits it, and it applies to every setting.
The permission is a definition, not an exception: “For purposes of this subdivision, ‘face-to-face contact’ means in-person contact, contact via two-way, real-time videoconferencing, or some combination of these.” Because the definition sits inside the direct-supervisor-contact section, every hour that section describes — individual, triadic, group — may be held by video. The Board’s own summary of the current edition records what changed: the sunset date on allowing supervision by videoconference in any setting is deleted, “allowing it to continue indefinitely”.
| License | Section | What it says about video |
|---|---|---|
| Marriage and family therapy | §4980.43.2 | “Face-to-face contact” means in-person, two-way real-time videoconferencing, or a combination; the 60-day appropriateness meeting and its documentation follow in the same section |
| Clinical social work | §4996.23.1 | “Face-to-face contact” means in-person, two-way real-time videoconferencing, or a combination; the 60-day appropriateness meeting and its documentation follow in the same section |
| Professional clinical counseling | §4999.46.2 | “Face-to-face contact” means in-person, two-way real-time videoconferencing, or a combination; the 60-day appropriateness meeting and its documentation follow in the same section |
The three sections are worded alike on video. They differ elsewhere: the trainee ratio of one supervision hour to five direct-counseling hours appears in the MFT and LPCC sections; the LCSW section counts the hours its own way (§4996.23(d)).
Video supervision is not telehealth practice
These sections are about how a supervisor meets a supervisee. Seeing a client by video is a different rule set entirely — 16 CCR §1815.5 and B&P §2290.5 — with its own consent and session-record requirements. The telehealth rules page covers the practice side, and the consent generator produces the documents it asks for.
The 60-day meeting
Four things the assessment weighs, and the one outcome that ends the arrangement.
Subdivision (d): “Within 60 days of the commencement of supervision, a supervisor shall conduct a meeting with the supervisee during which the supervisor shall assess the appropriateness of allowing the supervisee to receive supervision via two-way, real-time videoconferencing.” It is the supervisor’s assessment, it has a deadline, and it produces a record.
Named first in the statute. A supervisee new to the work, or to this population, is a different assessment from one in a third year of hours.
Both, in the statute’s words. A supervisor who prefers video cannot impose it on a supervisee who does not, and the reverse.
“The privacy of the locations of the supervisee and supervisor while supervision is conducted.” A shared office, a car, a room where a family member can hear: the assessment is about the room as much as the connection.
“The supervisor shall document the results of the assessment … and shall not utilize supervision via two-way, real-time videoconferencing if their assessment finds it is not appropriate.” The document is the evidence that the hours were supervised lawfully; a Board audit of a supervisor’s compliance is expressly contemplated by 16 CCR §1833(c)(3)(D).
The Supervision Agreement the same 60 days require (16 CCR §1833(c) and its counterparts) is where most supervisors keep this; the agreement and every other form are read one by one on the forms guide. Whether the supervisor is eligible at all — license, two of five years, the setting, the employment relationship — is what the eligibility check screens.
The weekly arithmetic
Video changes where the hour happens, not how many hours there are.
“Supervision shall include at least one hour of direct supervisor contact in each week for which experience is credited in each work setting.” Two settings in a week means two hours, one for each.
The MFT and LPCC sections state the ratio for trainees; an associate in either, and an associate under the LCSW section, who performs more than 10 hours of direct clinical work in a setting in a week receives one additional hour of contact for that setting.
“No more than six hours of supervision, whether individual, triadic, or group, shall be credited during any single week”, for experience gained on or after 1 January 2009.
Of the 104 weeks of required supervision, 52 are individual or triadic supervision. Group supervision is two hours for one hour of credit, with no more than eight supervisees, and a segment may not be shorter than one continuous hour.
“Direct supervisor contact shall occur within the same week as the hours claimed.” A supervisor away on vacation or sick leave may arrange alternative supervision that meets the same requirements, and 16 CCR §1833.1(a)(10) requires written procedures for reaching an on-call supervisor in a crisis, given to the supervisee before supervision starts — the procedure a remote arrangement needs most.
What that costs at your supervisor’s rates, and how many weeks are left to 3,000 hours, is on the supervision cost calculator; what the hours themselves have to contain is on the 3,000-hours page.
Then what
The pages around this one.
Before you agree
The supervisor eligibility and arrangement check
License, relationship, setting, capacity and paperwork, screened in the browser.
Finding one
Finding a clinical supervisor in California
Which chapters publish supervision directories and which do not.
The paperwork
The Board’s forms, form by form
The Supervision Agreement’s 60 days, the weekly log, the verification.
The dates
The associate clocks calculator
Registration life, renewals and the hours window from your own dates.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The three sections
- Marriage and family therapy — section 4980.43.2
- Clinical social work — section 4996.23.1
- Professional clinical counseling — section 4999.46.2
- Board of Behavioral Sciences, Statutes and Regulations: §4980.43.2, §4996.23.1, §4999.46.2, 16 CCR §1833 and §1833.1, and the NEW / AMENDED LAWS table recording the deleted sunset; read 7 September 2026
The Board’s own guidance
Quotations are from the Board’s Statutes and Regulations compilation as read on 7 September 2026, with each section linked to leginfo. The compilation’s summary table records the deletion of the videoconference sunset but names no bill, and none is asserted here. Whether video supervision is appropriate in a particular arrangement is the supervisor’s documented assessment, not a question this page answers.
