Right now being a licensed therapist in the United States is a little like training to be an elite athlete — it requires time, coaching and a lot of endurance.
In order to become a mental health counselor, clinicians have to train under a supervisor while they complete a graduate degree, take a preliminary licensing exam, work under another supervisor for at least a year and a half, take another licensing test — all before they can even think about starting their own practice. All of these requirements are also different for every state. And when a clinician moves, they have to start part of the process over.
The American Counseling Association has been working to make this process easier through an interstate compact. After all, moving is not uncommon for most Americans, nor is accessing telehealth. Interstate compacts are formal agreements between states. Counseling compacts in particular allow licensed professional counselors — who have trained under the rigorous scrutiny mentioned above — to extend their license to multiple states without starting the whole process over again. The ACA first pushed to create a counseling compact six years ago, but it’s still not complete.
Part of the problem is finding uniform ways to manage and share data between licensing boards. Government tech systems are notoriously difficult to update, often because of the extended need for cybersecurity precautions.
So when InspiringApps started to develop Compact Connect in 2023, it felt like a ray of hope for many.
Built In spoke with InspiringApps about the impact of this project and others with one of the company’s talented engineers.
InspiringApps is a digital product design and development company that creates innovative solutions for clients across various industries.
What project are you most excited to work on in 2025? What is particularly compelling about this work for you?
We have a great launch planned for 2025 for Compact Connect, a system in which occupational therapists, speech pathologists and mental health therapists easily purchase a privilege to practice in one of more than 30 states participating in a multi-state license compact.
Prior to the compacts and Compact Connect, practitioners needed to be fully licensed in each state where they practice. That can be both expensive and time-consuming. Now providers will be able to continue to deliver care to clients who move across state lines and greatly expand the reach of practitioner care.
What’s very compelling to me is that military members and their spouses, often impacted by relocation, will be able to continue their practice or treatment without finding a new provider or going through months of costly approvals. Compact Connect also tracks disciplinary action across state lines to keep clients safe.
What does the roadmap for this project look like? Who will you collaborate with? What challenges or blocks do you anticipate? How do you envision overcoming those challenges?
We started onboarding compact member states. That will continue through 2025. States have their own systems and processes that need to integrate with Compact Connect. Supporting those states and addressing unique integration challenges will be a primary focus for that project this year. I’ve worked on many projects at InspiringApps involving diverse stakeholders and consensus building. One noteworthy example was for a FEMA-backed system for our national fire services.
The skills I (and our team) gained on that project are directly applicable to Compact Connect. Demonstrating the value of what we’re implementing is an exciting opportunity. It sounds like a good challenge — and it is! We’ve got some outstanding people working on this project from many disciplines.
Demonstrating the value of what we’re implementing is an exciting opportunity. It sounds like a good challenge — and it is!
What in your past projects, education or work history best prepares you to tackle this project? What do you hope to learn from this work to apply in the future?
A brief overview of past experience includes developing on mission-critical 911 telecom infrastructure, building a system that sent public support messages and telemetry data to and from the Artemis I spacecraft (yeah, the one that orbited the moon), and building a supply chain system to automate meal delivery to children who need extra financial support in Colorado.
Those projects faced real-world challenges and required developing expertise across a wide variety of industries and technologies. While the technology requires an experienced hand, the most important lesson learned is usually to surround yourself with great people and let them do what they do best.
