Browser-only text check · nothing typed is stored or sent
Does your profile say what the Board’s advertising rule requires? Paste it and see.
16 CCR §1811 has been in force since 1 April 2026: name as filed, the complete title or a listed abbreviation, the number; for associates the employer and a statement of licensed supervision; for trainees the supervisor’s license type and number. The Board’s example sheets show how profiles fail it. This page checks your text against both.
Your text →Your text
The facts the rule turns on, then the advertisement.
An advertisement is your website, your directory profile, your bio, your social media and your email signature, not only print: the definition in B&P §651 reaches all of them, and the Board’s sheets flag email addresses and web addresses. Paste the whole profile, headers and handles included. The advertising-rules page has the rule as a checklist.
The rule
One regulation, one statute for trainees, one standard behind both.
“(1) The first name and last name of the licensee or registrant as filed with the board. (2) The complete title of the license or registration held or an acceptable abbreviation” — LMFT or MFT, LEP, LCSW, LPCC; for registrants the full title, with AMFT, ASW and APCC usable only where the full title also appears — “(3) The license or registration number.” 16 CCR §1811(a), operative 1 April 2026.
“(1) The name of their employer, or if not employed, the name of the entity for which they volunteer. (2) That they are supervised by a licensed person.” The Board’s example sheet accepts “Supervised by a Licensed Therapist” as the minimum and flags a license abbreviation alone and “practicing under supervision”.
The advertisement includes “the trainee’s name, the supervisor’s license designation or abbreviation, and the supervisor’s license number,” and states that the person is a marriage and family therapist trainee, the employer, and that they are supervised by a licensed person. The sheet’s minimum: “Keisha Jones / Marriage and Family Therapist Trainee / Nonprofit ABC / Supervised by a LMFT, License No. 99999”.
MFTA and ACSW as abbreviations; AMFT alone; “License No.” on a registration; “MFT” in an email address or “Clinical Counselor” in a web address on a pre-licensed person; a nickname or former name without the filed name; a promised cure. All from the Board’s example sheets, revised March 2026.
Then what
The rule in full, and the other documents.
The rule as a checklist
The BBS advertising rule, effective April 2026
Licensees, associates and trainees, and the seven ways the Board’s examples show profiles failing.
The notice that goes with it
The Notice to Clients generator
The Board’s complaint notice with your name, number, type and expiration.
If you see clients by video
The telehealth consent generator
The four initiation items and the per-session record.
Everything else before the first client
Opening a private practice: the checklist
Sixteen sourced items in the order they bite.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The rule
The Board’s sheets, revised 03/2026, effective 04/01/2026
Nothing typed leaves the browser. The page finds strings; it does not read type size and does not judge a claim’s truth. The Board’s sheets say other formats meeting the rule are also acceptable, so a “missing” here on a wording this page does not recognize is a prompt to check, not a finding.
