about us
National Certification Board for
Behavioral Health Professionals
Our mission is to protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of all behavioral health recipients across the country.
We are a full service, national third-party credentialing organization. Our full spectrum of services includes credential development, certification processing, examination development and administration, and ongoing professional regulation of NCBBHP certified behavioral health professionals.
The NCBBHP works in partnership and consults with state agencies, organization, and other stakeholder groups to address professional certification and regulation needs, including planning, developing, and instituting uniform standards and credentials within the state or organization. One of our core objectives is to promote national standards in the behavioral health field and establish reciprocity of credentialed professionals across states.
Our Team
Our team is led by nationally recognized experts with vast expertise in certification program development, implementation, and administration. Certification specialists, test development professionals, and workforce experts are available to assist representatives of various professions to develop a new certification or credentialing program.
Our History
The National Certification Board for Behavioral Health Professionals (NCBBHP) originated in 2022 as an extension of the Florida Certification Board (FCB), an organization founded in 1983 to credential the state’s alcohol and drug counselors. Since that time, the FCB has added multiple behavioral health related credentials, becoming Florida’s premier third-party credentialing organization. In its design, development, and management of behavioral health certification programs, the FCB is devoted to protecting the health, safety, and welfare of Florida’s most vulnerable residents. As of 2024, the FCB has certified more than 28,000 professionals in over 35 health and human services professions.
Originally, the FCB partnered with Mental Health America (MHA) to develop a national mental health peer certification system, specifically focused on demonstrating to private-pay insurance companies the increased outcomes and decreased costs to offering peer support services to people seeking recovery from mental health conditions. A shift in the priorities of the MHA, however, led to a request that the FCB continue its work on the national mental health peer certification. In doing so, FCB leadership chose to initiate a new national behavioral health certification board to support its work as an independent credentialing organization.
As an outgrowth of the FCB, the NCBBHP expands our mission to a national audience. Its examination/psychometric services and professional credentialing programs been sought out by a variety of state agencies and associations, state certification boards, and individual professionals seeking to demonstrate adherence with national standards for quality care in mental health, behavioral health, and addiction services. This demand, coupled with the importance of fostering credential reciprocity between states, is integral to the work of the NCBBHP. Today, its primary areas of emphasis include establishing practice standards, administering examinations and credentials, and regulating the ethical and professional standards for each of its mental health focused certification programs.
Board of Directors
