Inside Rehabilitation Counseling
Inside Rehabilitation Counseling
Top 10 Most Asked Questions about Certification Renewal with Jennifer Marcu
Nobody gets more questions here at CRCC than our Certification Department. Certification Supervisor Jen Marcu works with her team to answer questions, clarify steps in the certification process, and connect with thousands of certificants and future CRCs across the US every week.
Jen returns as our guest this week, and we will explore some of the questions she hears most from CRCs and CVEs that are set to renew their certification.
We made a list of the top 10 most frequently asked questions about the renewal process and requirements and tackled them one by one, hopefully helping any of you out there preparing to stay certified!
Helpful Links Discussed in Today's Episode:
Welcome back to the Inside Rehabilitation Counseling podcast. I'm Taylor Bauer, Director of Communication and Marketing at CRCC, and I'm grateful to have you here for another conversation about the art and science of rehabilitation counseling. A selling point for certified rehabilitation counselors or certified vocational evaluators is that maintaining your credential supports a lifelong learning through continuing education requirements tied to your certification renewal. With a five-year certification cycle, that time can simultaneously feel like a long time and also fly by before you know it. When it comes time to renew, everything from continuing education requirements, fees, and the overall renewal application process can be a little hazy. CRCC certification manager Jen Marcou is back on the podcast this month to discuss the most frequently asked questions about renewing your credential. These are the things that her team gets asked most frequently from first-time renewal candidates to long-time CRCs or CVEs, and Jen is hopeful that this overview will help you stay ahead of your CEUs, plan for a smooth renewal, and reduce the stress of completing the requirements to stay certified as the gold standard in disability services. Please enjoy this first episode of 2026. Jen, happy new year. Welcome back to the Inside Rehabilitation Counseling podcast. How was your holiday?
Jen Marcu:It was good. Thank you. How was yours?
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:It was good. You know, listeners don't know this, but we are currently talking to each other and recording this podcast with only a wall between us, which is kind of funny. Typically, you know, these conversations happen across the country. Um, I could run to you in about four seconds if I needed to.
Jen Marcu:I think you could make it three years pretty fast.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Okay. Time me. No, I'm just kidding. We're here for business. Um well, I'm glad that you had a great holiday. Um, I'm excited to have a new year underway and to get back to recording some episodes for the podcast. And we thought we'd start things off with kind of a response that we had to an episode from last year. You joined us in June and we talked about the 10 most asked questions about becoming a certified rehabilitation counselor. And we got a lot of great feedback from students, educators, um, folks who were just curious about this work, um, that that was kind of a helpful way to have some of their questions answered because, you know, they're frequently asked for a reason. And we're kind of back for part two, but this time focused on uh renewal and staying certified. Um, and a lot of this could pertain to CVEs as well. So this is kind of even just a broad what does it take to stay certified? And we're gonna kind of go through the 10 most uh asked questions that you and your department get here at CRCC, um, starting with kind of a big one, right? Because you can't renew if you don't know when you're supposed to renew. So let's dive into it, Jen. When is someone's renewal period and how do they know where to find that?
Jen Marcu:That's a great question because that is a common one that we get, is it's five years after you complete your previous renewal or if you pass the exam. So let's, for example, if someone had completed their renewal in 2020, they would be due in 2025, which is the easiest math for me right now. So we do have those coming up for renewal in March of 2026, and then we have another renewal in September of 2026. So depending on when you completed your exam, you would fall into one of those renewal categories.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:You know, I think the daunting thing for a lot of people is the fact that let's say I became certified for the first time in 2021, and this year, that would mean that I'm up for renewal. Um, that is a long time ago. And that can be kind of tricky to navigate. So it's it's good to know that that five-year cycle is going to happen for folks either in March or September. Um, but rather than rely on memory, which, you know, with how busy our lives get, that can be a little tricky. How does CRCC go about letting folks know that it's time to renew? What sort of communications can our listeners inspect when it's about time for them to recertify?
Jen Marcu:We do send out emails as reminders. So we do request that you check your email as well as have an email you check often. So we'll send out email reminders approximately four months before the renewal is due. You can always email us at our contact us email if you're unsure. It is in your account as well and listed under my credentials on the left sidebar. But we'll also send out those email reminders to the email on file. So if you have a work email or a non-personal email, you can always help have us update that for you because that's typically preferred versus a work email.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Particularly for those students who might get certified and uh fill out their application to take the exam uh with their EDU email. And then unless they're staying there for a position or something like that, that might not be an email in five years they're using anymore. So it's uh it's a good tip to kind of put an email that's gonna stick with you. I still use a Gmail account I made in high school. Uh fun fact.
Jen Marcu:I have a Gmail as well from high school.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Yep. And I do have a Yahoo account that I don't use anymore that I made in middle school. And the handle was Crazy Rocker 44 because I learned how to play guitar in middle school and thought that that was a cool email. Um, now I'm painfully embarrassed of it. That's why it doesn't get used anymore. It's definitely daunting for folks, obviously, to, you know, five years later remember that it's time to renew, but those communications are definitely a helpful way to stay on top of things. Is there a reason that those don't start um going out until four months before that they're due?
Jen Marcu:That's when we open up your application. So that's a great question. That's when we'll open everything up for you to submit and complete. You can start continuing education before then. We highly encourage it as well as submit them early as you need in the five years you have. And we'll get into that a little bit more later. If you know that's a freaking question as well. But yeah, so we typically send the emails out four months in advance to tell you that it's now available for completion. If you are ahead of schedule and got all your continuing education in, the hey, go ahead and complete it early, get it out of the way, knock one thing off your list and go kick back and relax.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Yeah, especially with this uh period of time we're in right now, January 2026. Everyone's all about resolutions and staying on top of stuff in the new year. So um, if you follow us on social media, you've seen a lot of posts about, you know, starting the year off strong and particularly getting a head start on those CE requirements. Even if you're not due to renew for four years, uh, maybe you just renewed 20 CEs a year, ends up adding up to what you need uh to meet that requirement to renew your CRC. And I guess that kind of moves us into the next question that your department hears a lot, which is there are kind of two types of continuing education credit. There's post-approved and pre-approved. What is the difference between those two? And um, do they count differently for renewal? Um, should we be trying to get one other than the other? How does that work?
Jen Marcu:That's a great question. So, yeah, there are the differences with the pre-approved and the post-approved. If I was to say honestly, I would go the pre-approved route because post-approved is we have not reviewed the course previously. So CRCC staff is reviewing the course. There is an $18 fee to review per submission. So you could submit a one-hour course or a 50-hour course, and it's still $18. With the pre-approved course, the staff has already reviewed the course in our education department. There is no additional fee. So the provider would give you on the certificate of completion a pre-approval number that would be entered into our system to be then added towards your continuing education, the 100 hours. So I would always encourage pre-approved. We do have a list of pre-approved providers. Sorry, that's a tongue twister sometimes, uh, that have courses available to you. Um, we also have pre-approved courses through eUniversity for purchase that also automatically uploads your account once completed. So it's a little bit off your plate in the long run of things. So we can always look into that further. And I encourage you to always go through your account, play around, find things, you know, maybe teach me a thing or two.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:And it's great too, because you'll see on social media like LinkedIn and things like that, CRCs love sharing opportunities for continuing education, you know, things like online webinars and the like, um, which hopefully those uh presenters and planners are going through the pre-approval process so that you're having that smooth upload. And yeah, at university, we get a lot of great feedback on just because when you finish that course, that's automatically uploaded to your profile, which takes a lot of the steps to get that, you know, officially listed on your renewal application out of the way, which is super helpful considering, you know, you have uh number of courses you need to take or credits you need to earn. And um, the easier that it can be made for you, the better uh to make this process as smooth as possible. Um, you mentioned that there was a post-approval fee. What other fees can folks inspect when they're going through the renewal process?
Jen Marcu:There will be the fee for the application for your renewal, which is 405 currently. But yeah, that would be the only additional fee outside of post-approval that you would be expecting if you go that route. Again, pre-approved is there's plenty of opportunities, but we do have the post-approved for additional courses and information on that can be found in our guide. If you're curious of kind of what would be a bigger chunk for the post-approval, I would definitely recommend reviewing the guide there.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Yeah, that guide is super helpful. Um, especially, I mean, you can even control F search the thing that you're trying to find. And that's I still do that, you know, when I need to cheat and be like, what is the rule on that? Um, or I just, you know, go across the wall to you and ask you and bother you. Um so that's good to know. I mean, so that that fee is covering you for five years. So rather than have an annual maintenance fee like other certifications, this is kind of a you pay, you're good for five years, and you stay certified and can continue to do the great work that you do. So um, it's good to know that that along with those post-approve opportunities are kind of the the the dollars that folks can inspect um in this process. When it comes to continuing education, how does someone upload that to their profile? And when do they do that? Is it something where, like, if I know I'm going to a conference, can I upload it ahead of time? Or if I purchase a course, does it get uploaded before I complete it? How does that work?
Jen Marcu:Yeah, once you complete a course, if it's pre-approved, um, they can you can upload them at any time. We encourage you to do it after completion so it's off your plate so that in five years, you're like, Did I do that? Wait, did I do that? I'm not sure. I always say do it right away. Just get it off your plate, get it out of the way. And to do so, when you log into your account, you go to what's called the My Credentials page, and that brings you into your application by clicking on certification details. You can then see that you have your general information about yourself that we always ask that you review an update update in case you've moved, got a new email, new last name, you know, if you change your birthday, who knows? You know, it's all in there for you. And then you can then click on continuing education to upload all your continuing education there and also see what you have already uploaded as pre-approved or post-approved. It all lists it in there for your current cycle. So that's really encouraged to go to that site to see everything for this current renewal cycle for yourself.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:So that's helpful because if I'm a CRC and I I know I've uploaded 40 hours of pre-approved credit, it's gonna not only show me that that's in there, but it's gonna show me how many I still have to do, correct?
Jen Marcu:Correct. Yeah. So it'll give you a graph bar, which is really helpful visually for me at least. I'm a visual learner, so I can see how many I've already done, how many I have left for ethics as well as general. So it's always beneficial in that way versus trying to add them up. I'm not good at math, so I'm very it's very helpful having that bar graph there.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:And then just to recap, too, because I know we do get this question a lot. This isn't on our official list. So I'm cheating. I guess it's now 11 most asked questions. What is that breakdown of normal credits versus ethics credits? How does that work?
Jen Marcu:So you are required to have 100 in total, 10 of which are ethics. So the way I always explain it is that you need 100 hours, and how you go about that is up to you. You can do 90 hours in general, 10 of which are ethics, which equals the 100 hours in total. Or if you're an overachiever, you can do 100 hours in general and 10 in ethics to meet the requirement still, but you need at least 10 in ethics of the 100 total. And anything over the ethics requirement. So let's say you did 15 hours in ethics, that five extra hours will go towards your general amount.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:That's helpful to know. And if a conference session or or another opportunity is going to count for ethics credit, I know I always see that folks are very clear in telling people that because those are highly coveted credits. And similarly at a university, any of our courses that count towards ethics, say ethics in that title. So you're hopefully never going to be confused over whether or not it's an ethics course or not.
Jen Marcu:Absolutely.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:When someone is about to, you know, recertify, let's say I recertified today, right? Could I start working on my next round of continuing ed? Like when do you see people start trying to accrue credits? When's a good time to start getting on that? We do know, you know, people sometimes wait till the last minute and then they call on them and they're kind of stressed. So if I'm trying to avoid that kind of overwhelmed feeling, when would you suggest we start accruing credits for renewal?
Jen Marcu:So that's one of the benefits of doing it early, is you get to kick back and relax. I would not encourage you to start accruing credits until the next renewal cycle, which would be either April 1st of that year or September October 1st of that year. Sorry. It would end September 30th and start October 1st, and the same Oct it would end March 31st and begin April 1st. So I always say if you get them done early, get your application in, kick back and relax a little bit, take a break, because the out the dates of completion, you need to be in the current renewal cycle. So anything completed prior to that date would not go towards the future renewal cycle. So kick your feet up, take a break, read a book, read a newspaper, whatever you're into, and just enjoy the time.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Selfishly, I was thinking listen to the podcast. Um, but that's kind of self-promotional. Um, so that's interesting. So if I paid for my renewal application today and I was due in March, but I go to a conference in February, that doesn't count toward my next cycle.
Jen Marcu:Correct. Yeah, it would have to be completed in the renewal cycle. So it's it is completed in this renewal cycle, it would not go towards your future one. So that's why I always encourage you just get done early, take a break, and then hit the ground running in the next renewal cycle.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Okay. Another sub-question. Again, we're kind of cheating again. Um, where am I going to be finding opportunities to earn CE credits?
Jen Marcu:That's a great question. So you can find them in the e University courses. You can find them within the CE provider list that has pre-approved courses throughout there. Um, you can always reach out to us and see what we have available if we know of any upcoming conferences, things like that. We can always kind of do a little research for you. Um, social media is a great spot, you know, as Taylor had mentioned, that going and talking to your fellow, you know, staff and people and finding out from them where they're finding their opportunities is always an opportunity, you know, great solution for that. But we do have the lists available. Staff is always available to ask questions about it. You know, we might not have the answer offhand, but we're happy to look into it for you as well.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Great. Thanks, Jen. Um, so let's say I do my 100 hours. Am I good to go? Or what requirements are there for me to actually get that email that says I'm renewed for another five years?
Jen Marcu:Yeah. So once you complete your 100 hours and have uploaded them to our system, you would then go to the next steps of completing the application. So to get there, you start with the my credentials page, go to certification details. As long as you have a met or complete on both the continuing education as well as contact information, you can click on view progress or I can't remember the other part of it, but it says view progress somewhere on there. And you go and click that, it'll bring you then to the next page, which is a submit renewal button at the bottom. You'll then have to read through the statement of an understanding, select that you read it, and answer the disclosure questions. With the disclosure questions, it kind of leads into something we get sometimes. It's asking you questions about yourself within the renewal cycle. So typically, the first the second question, if you had a surname in the past five years, let's say I got married in the past five years or divorced, it'll ask you to upload a document there. You can upload your marriage certificate, your divorce decree, something along those lines, just kind of so we show yes, you have changed your last name. We can update that for you and improve it. And the questions will prompt you for that. You can then move forward with the payment page and go from there. And then once you pay, you're you'll get that wonderful email that says you're renewed for the next five years, which for people renewing in 2026, that means they're renewed through 2031, which is still just crazy to me to think that far ahead, but it is how math works.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:2031 sounds like a date you'd see in a sci-fi movie. Um, like it's not real. Um, but we'll blink and it'll be 2031. Um, so that's helpful to know kind of what the steps are and everything. And um, on that note, since this is something that I kind of do here at CRCC, I'll mention once you go through those processes of renewing and the application window closes for renewal, that's kind of the way that we pull the list to send people their digital badges. So that'll be something that you can look forward to as well as that email uh is another digital badge that you can show off on social media or your email signature or website or send it to every single person you know and let them know that you're certified another five years. Um, let's say that I'm potentially in the next five years planning to retire, um, or maybe I've already retired since my last cycle went through. CRCC offers a retirement designation. Can you talk a little bit about what that entails?
Jen Marcu:Yeah, so the hire rate designation is for those that want to keep in contact and abreast of everything going on with the organization, just to kind of represent yourself. You've worked really hard for this. I mean, no one's doubting that by any means. And I would represent myself just as that, as a retired designation. So all you have to do is give us a call at our general number. We'll take a one-time $100 fee for you. You do not have to complete continuing education, but you can represent yourself as a CRC retired designation so that you can show the world that you worked hard for this, you earned it, you passed a really rigorous exam, and that you want to keep abreast of all the information and activities going on with us. It's a great opportunity.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:And if the free time I have on my hands is like too much and I decide to start working again, do I just go back to being a CRC or no?
Jen Marcu:No, that's a great question. So once you do enter a retirement designation, if you decide to go back to work or need the representation of your CRC, you would have to take the exam again. So I do encourage you to kind of think it through a little bit to make sure it is something that you're not going to change your mind on in a few years because you know you pass the exam once. I personally am not an exam taker. For those that are, congrats to you. I would not want to sit again. That's just me. So just note that if you do enter a retirement designation or let your CRC lapse, you do have to take the exam again.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Okay, that's good. And and something for people to consider before they make that transition into that honorary designation. Um so we've talked about renewing, we've talked about retirement designation. What happens if someone doesn't renew their credential? So let's say I'm due in March and the deadline goes by and I haven't filled out the application, haven't completed my CEs, and I am not renewed for another five years. What does that process look like for me?
Jen Marcu:So we'll send that communication to you via email primarily to tell you that you have laps and that you will have to remove your designation from any media social media from your emails, you know, on LinkedIn, wherever you have it posted, we do ask that you remove that. And then if you decide later on that you want to come back, you can always reach out to us. And depending on the time frame, you know, you likely will have to take the exam again. But we can always look into that for the different situations that occur. You know, we're always open to hearing what took place, things like that, and reviewing it. But typically we will have you take the exam again. So please make sure to remove all designations if you have lapsed. And if you're not sure, please reach out to us. We can always look into that for you.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Right. And then is there any, and this is a big question, right, to end on because I know you all hear it all the time. Are there any discounts for the renewal process that are offered at this time?
Jen Marcu:Currently, no, but you can always have your employer or school or you know, anyone like that join our group payment program, but you can always have them reach out to pay for you. So that discount option at the bottom is primarily for that. There is no discount code I can provide you. Unfortunately, staff doesn't have that either. That's for when an organization or school or employer is giving, paying for you, they would provide that to you. And no, I don't have them, unfortunately. You know, they keep them hidden away. Just joking. But I don't have them either way.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:That's really helpful, Jen. And um, I think all of these questions are things that are going to at least pop in someone's head if it's their first renewal cycle. If it's been your like third or fourth, fifth, maybe, it's still been five years since you went through this process again. Um I think it's helpful for folks to hear these questions that are coming to you and your team most often because they've probably had these two. And, you know, one of the things I think would be really helpful to end on is just talking a little bit about the office hours that your department holds and how folks can attend those and get information about those.
Jen Marcu:Yeah, we love our office hours. It's a webinar we host. Um, we're trying to do a few times a year around the renewal cycles, and we'll have an examination one if anyone's interested in that as well. We're gonna hold ours later on this month. So we'll send out communication if you're interested in that. We'll have it and we'll go through similar things that we went through today, but we'll show you as well. So, you know, we'll we'll go through the application process for the renewal, we'll go through CEUs, we'll answer questions on that. You know, I have Solencia sitting in with me, who you'll probably have talked to her if you called in. She's that beautiful voice that you hear on the phone and is very genuine with everything she says. So she'll be helping me go through all the questions and answers, kind of diving deeper into things that people ask, like what kind of continuing education works? What do I, how do I do this? How do I do that? And we'll show you a little more deeper into that and just answer any more questions. And, you know, please answer ask questions. We're here to figure out what people need to know as well. You know, these are general questions that we get, but if there's more specifics, we would ask you, you know, take it offline because it is a recorded session, but it kind of helps us think, okay, so we had a couple people ask similar questions. How can we get this information out there better for you?
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Yeah, I feel like some of those questions we get in office hours are ones that we talked about today. Because again, everyone kind of is curious about the same things. How do I get go through the process? What does it cost? Uh, is there anything I need to know about when it's time to retire? Things like that. So it's really helpful, I think, to attend those office hours so you can actually talk to someone, you know, webcam to webcam, um, and and really, you know, get to get to talk through some of those general items. But it also is helpful to know if I have a specific question about my own application or my own background or or journey, if you will, uh, that just shooting an email or calling over is the best way to get in contact with you all. Uh, those office hours are great. And, you know, the certification department here is really great. Um, Jen, this has been really helpful. I think a lot of folks are going to be happy to uh hear kind of an overview of this uh renewal application process. And hopefully you'll be getting a flood of applications in shortly with people who have been refreshed on how to do all this and are ready to renew in 2026 and beyond.
Jen Marcu:Well, thank you for having me.
Taylor Bauer, CRCC:Thanks to Jen Marcu, certification manager here at CRCC, for joining us to talk through the most frequently asked questions about certification renewal. Jen and her team are a huge resource to our certificates, and you can reach out to them via email or phone. All of our contact information, as well as the renewal guidelines and instructions, are on our website, crccertification.com. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn by searching CRCCert. Like, subscribe, and rate the show on your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to us today. And hey, if you have an idea for a future episode of the show, or you just want to come on and tell us about the work you're doing as a certified rehabilitation counselor or certified vocational evaluator, get in touch. We would love to have you. Thank you for listening to Inside Rehabilitation Counseling. I'm CRCC, Director of Communications and Marketing, Taylor Bauer. Take care.
