About Us

~ Who we Are ~

Program Services is pleased to provide state-of-the-art continuing education programs for professionals in psychology, mental health, social work, marriage and family, behavioral health, addictions, domestic violence, DUI educators, employee assistance, criminal justice professionals, and behavioral health nursing. Educational offerings contain current evidence-based best practice information. We also feature various credentialing opportunities, applied-science technologies, and required coursework for recertification, legislative compliance, and licensure renewal. Our offerings can be accessed via live seminar, home study offering or on-line internet course. Our topics include a wide range of counseling topics, addictions, abuse and trauma, assessment, special populations and problems. Also available are practice development topics including documentation, treatment planning, supervision, and ethics.

Policies regarding fees, refunds and registration are clearly printed on all our instruction sheets and on our policies page. We notify interested participants by email newsletter on a quarterly basis.

~ Target Audience and Provider Approval ~

Our target audience includes, but is not limited to, Psychologists, Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, Mental Health Counselors, other Licensed Professional Counselors, Certified Addictions Counselors, Licensed Nurses, and Employee Assistance Professionals, Behavior Analysts, Behavioral Health Technologists, DUI Educators, Domestic Violence Intervention Specialists and other allied and related health professionals may obtain re-certification credits with our offerings.

Program Services is an approved provider most national provider approval organizations as well as many state provider organizations for mental health professionals.  Please view our approvals page for detailed information.

~ Our Staff ~

All Program Services offerings are developed and approved by the Director of Continuing Education, Karen Albig Smith, LMFT, LCAS, CAP, MAC, SAP, SAE an experienced therapist, trainer, consultant, and research associate. With over 30 years of experience in both mental health and substance abuse, she has worked in most treatment settings, including EAP, participation in policy and regulatory efforts, conducted research on substance abuse, and has supervised and trained many professionals across the southeastern United States. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a clinical member and approved supervisor for the AAMFT, and is a Certified Addiction Professional with a Master Addiction Counselor certificate from NAADAC. The National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors named her "Counselor of the Year" In 1999.

To enhance offering review and augment research efforts on new offerings as well as those due for revision our provider compliance reviewers include: April Gilfort, Ph.D., Carla vanDam, Ph.D., Susan K. Becker Ph.D., for psychology, Marlys Maury Freeman, RN, LCSW for nursing, addictions, Robert Barrett, LCSW for social work and Shelton ‘Trip’ Woodard, LCSW, LMFT for social work and marriage and family therapy, and Les Sachs, MA, CADAC for addictions and employee assistance.

Technical support, information systems and database management are provided by Scott Walters (Ideasoftware.com, Xymmetrix.com and Computer Solutions).