DETROIT – COVID-19 is making it difficult for the State of Michigan to keep up with certain licenses.
Hundreds of psychologists are scheduled to lose their certification because they are not able to get their licenses renewed.
LARA is the licensing department for the state and most of those workers are operating from home, but the cause and effect of that is the red tape gets thicker and chokes off some essential services.
“Kids lost their therapist, I was that therapist,” said Norm Gajowiak who lost his license to practice psychology.
Gajowiak is a masters level psychologist in South Lyon who specializes in children and adolescents.
As of 12 days ago he became unlicensed to practice because he can’t get a mandatory test for recertification.
In March the licenses expired, but the state gave a six month extension which expired Sept. 30 with no expeditious way to get tested and so few testing centers across the nation open or available for recertification.
Gajowiak knows dozens of psychologists who are in his position and says every month more will lose their ability to practice, simply because they can’t find testing locations.
He says what hurts him the most is watching the kids he had to say goodbye to and seeing them cry.