Illinois LCPC Supervision Requirements: One Hour a Week, No Total (2026)

The Weekly Rule IDFPR Actually Checks

The supervision rule for LCPC hours sits in one sentence: "The supervisor shall have met face-to-face, as defined in Section 10 of the Act, with the applicant at least one hour each week. The supervision means the review of counseling and case management." (68 IAC 1375.130(e)(1)). There is no separate section setting a total number of supervision hours to accumulate over the two years.

IDFPR's own LCPC qualifications sheet restates the rule in different units: "an average of at least 4 hours per month spent in supervision." That line is IDFPR's summary of the same weekly rule, not a second, independent standard. The rule at 1375.130(e)(1) is what controls, and a weekly hour is not identical to a monthly average: a four-week month at one hour a week comes to 4 hours, a five-week month comes to 5.

The weekly rule applies for the whole period a qualified supervisor has to remain in place: the LCPC track requires "the equivalent of 2 years of full-time satisfactory supervised experience working as a clinical counselor in a professional capacity under the direction of a qualified supervisor subsequent to obtaining the degree" (1375.130(a)). Supervision is not a milestone you clear early; it runs alongside the entire experience, week by week, until the 3,360 hours are complete.

How Many Supervision Hours You End Up With

Because the rule sets a rate rather than a total, the number of supervision hours a given applicant logs depends on how long their hours take. This is arithmetic that follows from the weekly rule, not a stated requirement of its own.

At the standard pace, one 1,680-hour year takes not less than 48 weeks (1375.130(d)). At one supervision hour a week, that is 48 hours of supervision for the year, and 96 hours across the full two years and 96 weeks needed for the 3,360-hour total.

At a slower pace of 20 hours a week toward the experience total, a 1,680-hour year takes about 84 weeks to complete (1,680 divided by 20). At the same one-hour-a-week rate, that works out to about 84 hours of supervision for that year, higher only because the year itself took longer, not because the rule changed.

What Counts as Supervision

Illinois defines clinical supervision as experience "under the order, control, and full professional responsibility of a supervisor who reviews aspects of counseling and case management in a face-to-face meeting with the person under supervision" (225 ILCS 107/10). The statute defines face-to-face directly: "the session is live, interactive, and visual."

Video counts the same as an in-person meeting on one condition: "Video is considered face-to-face if the session is synchronous and involves verbal and visual interaction during supervision." A scheduled live video call between supervisor and supervisee, with both seeing and talking to each other, satisfies the rule; an asynchronous recording or a written exchange does not.

What Does Not Count

Rule 1375.130(i) rules out five specific arrangements: "Peer supervision. Administrative supervision. A primarily didactic process. Consultation, staff development, or orientation to a field or program, or role-playing of family interrelationships as a substitute for current clinical practice."

A weekly team meeting, a training webinar, or a check-in with a manager about scheduling can look like supervision on a calendar without meeting the rule. What the week's meeting has to include is a live review of your counseling and case management with a qualified supervisor.

Individual vs Group Supervision

"Supervision may be on an individual or group basis. When group supervision is provided the number of supervisees may not exceed five." (1375.130(f)). Illinois does not require a minimum share of individual sessions on the LCPC track, so the weekly hour can be met through individual meetings, eligible group sessions of up to five supervisees, or a mix of both.

The rule says nothing about how many supervisees one supervisor may carry in total; the five-person limit is the only cap it states.

Who Can Supervise LCPC Hours

A qualified supervisor for LCPC hours is "a licensed clinical professional counselor, licensed clinical social worker, licensed clinical psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, or licensed psychiatrist" (1375.130(c); 225 ILCS 107/10). No years-of-experience minimum is stated for any of the five.

Can an LCSW supervise an LPC in Illinois? Yes, plainly. An LCSW is one of the five license types the rule names, with no additional condition attached beyond holding an active Illinois LCSW license (or, if supervising from outside Illinois, meeting the out-of-state standard below).

That five-license list is specific to the counselor track. Illinois' social work track sets a narrower rule for its own hours: only another LCSW may supervise LCSW experience. See Illinois LCSW supervision requirements for that track's rule.

Where the Supervisor Has to Be Licensed

The controlling fact is where the applicant is physically located, not where the client is. "When a clinical counseling applicant is obtaining supervised experience while physically located in Illinois, the qualified supervisor must be licensed in Illinois, even if the services are being provided to persons located outside of Illinois via telehealth." (1375.130(c)).

If the applicant is physically located outside Illinois, the rule shifts: "the supervisor shall be a master's level or doctoral level counselor engaged in clinical professional counseling, clinical social work, clinical psychology, marriage and family therapy, or psychiatry" and licensed in whatever jurisdiction requires licensure for that work.

An applicant working in Chicago whose supervisor is a psychologist licensed only in another state, meeting weekly by video, would not satisfy the rule: the applicant is physically in Illinois, so the supervisor has to hold an Illinois license, regardless of where the supervisor is sitting during the call.

Employer, Hired, or Both

"A qualified supervisor may be provided at the applicant's place of work or may be hired or contracted by the applicant to provide clinical supervision." (1375.130(h)). Being supervised by your own employer, meaning your boss or someone your workplace assigns, is the normal arrangement under this rule, not an exception to it.

The restriction runs the other direction, on the supervisee: an LPC gathering LCPC hours "may not work as an independent contractor as defined by Internal Revenue Service regulations" and "may not hold an ownership interest in the business organization providing the clinical counseling services" (1375.130(l)).

Part 1375 does not address family relationships between supervisor and supervisee at all. Where the rule is silent, it is silent; nothing in the text bars a family member from serving as a qualified supervisor.

The Paperwork: What Gets Filed, and When

Nothing is filed before or during the supervised experience. No supervision agreement, no supervision plan, and no interim log goes to IDFPR while the weeks are being logged.

The only certification comes at the LCPC application, through the VE-LCPC, Verification of Employment/Experience form (IL486-1730 09/17, a 2-page flat PDF with no fillable fields). The applicant completes the first items, and the supervisor fills in the rest, including hours worked per week, hours met with the applicant per week, and an evaluation on a 1 to 5 scale. "The experience shall have been evaluated by the supervisor as satisfactory or better." (1375.130(e)(2)).

One VE-LCPC is required per supervisor, per site, per experience, and each one is returned "DIRECTLY TO THE APPLICANT IN A SEALED ENVELOPE" before it is filed with the LCPC application.

Keeping Your Own Weekly Record

A supervisor typically completes the VE-LCPC once, at the end of a supervision relationship or when you apply for the LCPC, sometimes years after the weeks it covers. The form asks for numbers your supervisor did not necessarily track themselves week to week.

A weekly record that a supervisor can work from should carry, at minimum: the date, hours worked that week, hours of supervision that week, and direct hours that week. Keeping those four numbers current from your first week, rather than reconstructing them at application time, is what makes the VE-LCPC's hours-per-week fields and its clock-hour totals accurate.

Common Mistakes on Illinois LCPC Supervision

Common errors on Illinois LCPC supervision, all of them avoidable with a clear record from the start.

Related Illinois LCPC Guides

FAQ: Illinois LCPC Supervision Requirements