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Which Washington group practices include AAMFT-Approved supervision in the job?

Washington requires at least 200 supervision hours for LMFT licensure, and at least 100 of them one on one. At the $100 to $200 hourly rates Washington supervisors publish, those individual hours alone run $10,000 to $20,000. A small number of group practices employ approved supervisors and provide that supervision to their own associates at no cost.


That is the whole answer, and almost nobody publishes it, which is why the question is hard to research. Supervision in Washington is overwhelmingly marketed as a service sold to a supervisee rather than as a term of employment. Search for it and you will find dozens of supervisors advertising their rates and almost no employers stating whether they cover it.


If you are an associate choosing between offers, this is worth more than a few percentage points of split.


What the state requires


For LMFT licensure, WAC 246-809-130 requires 3,000 hours of supervised postgraduate experience. Within that, 1,000 hours of direct client contact, and at least 500 of those hours diagnosing and treating couples and families. Supervision is at least 200 hours with an approved supervisor. One hundred of the 200 must be with a licensed marriage and family therapist holding at least two years of clinical experience, and at least 100 of the 200 must be one on one rather than group. Graduates of a COAMFTE-accredited program are credited with 500 direct contact hours and 100 supervision hours on entry.


For LMHC licensure, WAC 246-809-230 requires 36 months of full-time counseling or 3,000 hours, of which at least 1,200 must be direct counseling, with 100 hours of immediate supervision. Graduates of a CACREP-accredited program are credited with 50 supervision hours and 500 experience hours.


One thing worth clearing up, because it circulates as a misunderstanding. Washington does not require your supervisor to be AAMFT-Approved. The state's own requirement, in WAC 246-809-134, is a license held without restrictions and in good standing for the previous two years, 15 clock hours of training in clinical supervision, and 25 hours of experience supervising clinical practice. What the state does say, in the rule itself, is narrower and worth getting right. WAC 246-809-134(4)(c) provides that an AAMFT Approved Supervisor meets the training and experience qualifications in that subsection. It does not substitute for the other requirements, which include an unrestricted license in good standing for the previous two years. So the AAMFT designation is a higher and separate standard that Washington accepts in place of its own training and experience test, not a blanket equivalence and not a legal requirement. A supervisor without it can be entirely competent and entirely valid for your hours.


Where the designation matters is in what it took to get it, and in what your graduate program may require of your site. Several COAMFTE programs specify an AAMFT Approved Supervisor or Supervisor Candidate for a placement to count.


What it costs when you pay for it yourself


These are rates published on Washington supervisors' own websites, read in August 2026:


  • $100 an hour for individual supervision, Jonathan Aderhold, LMHC, at Mettarel

  • $140 an hour, Roots of Compassion Therapy in Seattle, with group at $75 per person for 60 minutes

  • $140 an hour, Anna Goeke, LMFT, at Mettarel, holding both Washington and AAMFT approval

  • $165 for 55 minutes, People Bloom Counseling in Redmond, with group at $180 per person for a three-hour session

  • $200 an hour, Steffen Counseling Services in Seattle, with group charged at $200 divided among three to six attendees, which works out to $33 to $67 per person


So the 100 one-on-one hours an LMFT associate has to accrue cost somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000 if you are buying them. Add the remaining 100 hours, which may be group, and the total climbs further.


For an LMHC associate the arithmetic is different and better. WAC 246-809-230(3)(b)(i) requires 100 hours of immediate supervision and does not require any of it to be one to one, so group is available for all of it. At published group rates that is closer to $3,300 to $7,500 than to $10,000 to $20,000. Ask a prospective employer what mix they provide.


That is real money, and it lands during the years when most associates are earning the least they will ever earn as licensed professionals.


How to check an employer's claim in ten minutes


Practices describe supervision loosely. "Weekly supervision," "supportive supervision" and "consultation available" are not the same thing as covered supervision from an approved supervisor, and the difference is thousands of dollars.


Four questions to ask, and how to verify the answers yourself:


  1. Is supervision provided at no cost to me, or deducted from my split or my pay in any form. Ask for it in writing. This is where the ambiguity usually lives.

  2. Who specifically will supervise me, by name and credential. A practice that cannot answer this in an interview does not have a plan for you.

  3. Is that person a Washington approved supervisor, an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, or both. Then check it. The AAMFT Approved Supervisor directory is searchable at aamft.org, and Washington's Department of Health runs a free public supervisor directory you can filter by county at doh.wa.gov. That directory is voluntary, so absence from it does not mean a supervisor is unapproved, but presence in it is confirmation.

  4. Will my hours count toward anything beyond state licensure. Hours supervised by an AAMFT Approved Supervisor can support AAMFT credentialing. Hours with an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist Supervisor count toward AASECT certification. If you have a specialty pathway in mind, ask before you start, because AASECT in particular does not count hours accrued before a signed supervision contract is in place.


Which practices do it


This is where an honest answer has to be short, because almost nobody publishes it.


Hope Thrive Counseling states on its jobs page that it provides "weekly individual and group supervision provided at no cost." It does not describe the supervision as AAMFT-Approved.


Northwest Relationships, where we work, employs five AAMFT Approved Supervisors and provides supervision to its associates at no cost to the clinician, with hours counting toward both AAMFT and AASECT credentialing. Robin Beckley, one of the five, serves as a mentor to AAMFT Supervisor Candidates, which means a clinician here who wants to become an Approved Supervisor can train toward it inside the practice rather than leaving to find a mentor.


Several other Washington practices advertise supervision in their benefits lists without saying whether it is covered. That is not a criticism, it may well be free at some of them, and it does mean you have to ask. We are not naming those practices here, because a public claim about what a competitor does or does not include should rest on a page we have read and dated, and we have not held that standard to those pages yet.


If you know of others, we would rather this list were longer and accurate than short and flattering to us. Tell us and we will add them.


If your current employer does not provide it


You are not stuck, and you do not have to pay $200 an hour.


Group supervision is legitimate for the portion of your hours that does not have to be one on one, and published Washington group rates work out to roughly $33 to $75 an hour per person depending on group size, which is a quarter to a half of the individual rate. Steffen Counseling charges $200 an hour divided among three to six attendees, People Bloom charges $180 per person for a three-hour group, and Roots of Compassion charges $75 per person for sixty minutes. People Bloom also publishes a two-person rate of $120 per person for 85 minutes, which is the middle option most readers will want and which almost nobody advertises. Washington's DOH supervisor directory is free to search and filters by county and by whether the supervisor offers distance supervision. And some supervisors set sliding-scale rates for associates that they do not publish, which is a conversation worth having rather than assuming.


The thing worth protecting is the quality of the relationship. Two hundred hours is a long time to spend with someone who signs your paperwork and little else.


Written with AI assistance and reviewed by the Northwest Relationships team. Rates and requirements verified August 2026. Requirements change, so check the current WAC before relying on any figure here.


Updated August 2026


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