Mental health services have been in high demand, especially since the pandemic, when rates of depression and anxiety skyrocketed.

And it's led to wait times of up to five months in many cases, before a person can even be seen by a therapist.

While a bill just cleared the Assembly health committee that could enter New Jersey into an interstate agreement called the Counseling Compact.

I'm joined now by mental health writer Bobby Brier, who can explain what this agreement is and how it could help meet the needs in the state.

Bobby, good to have you here and talking with us today.

So the Assembly Health Committee moved forward a bill that would enter New Jersey into this counseling compact.

What can you tell us about that compact?

What is it?

Yeah.

Essentially, the compact would allow for licensed professional counselors living in New Jersey to apply for this application that would then allow them to practice in other states without going through a multiple licensure application process.

The significance of that is that a lot of times when counselors, licensed professional counselors want to expand their pool of clients, they would have to go through a lengthy process where they could wait sometimes up to a month to get approved to practice in another state that would often cause disruptions in their practice.

It would also cause disruptions for their client base as well.

So this is a significant step forward really to not only help licensed professional counselors here in New Jersey expand their client base, but also for folks in New Jersey that are in need of counselors to get to see one potentially more quickly.

Yeah, right now, the wait times, as you reported in your recent article, are about 22 weeks for anyone to see a counselor.

And we know just anecdotally that there are many instances where folks are waiting much longer than that.

How could this help address the mental health need that exists in New Jersey?

It would essentially allow for folks who want to see a counselor to be able to see counselors, not just in New Jersey, but to see them in any of the other 30 compact member states.

Right now, there's Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut, as few of the other local states that have joined this compact.

So essentially somebody in New Jersey would be able to see maybe a counselor who has a license to practice in New Jersey, but may be residing in, say, Maryland, to see them via telehealth.

So it would allow for folks a greater diversity of potential therapists to see.

And it would also allow them to see potentially see some of these counselors sooner rather than later to cut down on a lot of these wait times that we're hearing about, unfortunately, not just here in New Jersey, but across the country as well.

We know that there's been a shortage of health care providers just based on the need that exists here in New Jersey.

Are any of those partner states having a better go at it, or could this end up actually taking some of the time from our therapists here and taking that into other states?

You know, it's right now it's it's hard to determine because the compacts are one step kind of in the process.

What will happen next is that a lot of the every counselor who's who's in one of these compact member states would then have to apply to get approved.

Now, that application process is supposed to be streamlined and supposed to be a lot quicker than a month, as some folks have have told me, you know, within a matter of minutes to get this this application approved.

But at the same time, it's going to take a while to get up and running.

So none of this is in place yet where there's actual therapists conducting telehealth.

It's all kind of the foundational aspects of it right now.

But there are potentials to have quicker wait times in a lot of these excuse me, quicker, quicker access to therapy in a lot of situations across state lines.

Bobby Brier always appreciate your reporting on mental health issues here in New Jersey.

Thank you.

Thanks, Joanna.