Quantum Units Education

Quantum Units Education is an online continuing education provider for licensed and certified professionals, mostly in counseling, social work, marriage and family therapy, addiction treatment and nursing. It is a learner product: a practitioner who needs CE hours for a license or certification renewal picks a short course, studies it online, takes the exam and buys a CE certificate. The home page calls the company "A Trusted Online CE Provider", carries the tagline "Affordable. Dependable. Accredited.", and says it has been serving over 150,000 LCSW, MFT, LPC, alcohol and drug counselor and nursing CE customers since 2005. The footer gives a mailing address in Claymont, Delaware.

How paying works

The pricing model is the most unusual thing about the site. The home page says: "All CE courses and exams are 100% Free. You only pay if you want a CE Certificate." Each course in the catalog still shows a price next to its CE hours, so read together with the home page, that price is what you pay when you want the certificate for a course you have passed.

On the mental health course list, the price rises with the hours. One-hour courses are $5.00, two-hour courses $10.00, three-hour courses $15.00, four-hour courses $20.00, the five-hour Disaster Planning for Behavioral Health Service Programs is $25.00, six-hour courses are $30.00 and eight-hour courses $40.00. The Treatment of Pregnant Women with Opioid Use Disorders, at 3.50 CE hours, is $17.50. A few courses are marked FREE outright, such as A Guide to Managing Stress for Disaster Responders and First Responders and Older Adults Living With Serious Mental Illness, each worth one CE hour.

For people who need more than a handful of hours, the home page promotes "newly reduced 1 Year Unlimited CE plans for $74.95", and the mental health page puts "Unlimited CE $74.95" in its title. The menu also has a CE Savings section with CE Discount Plans and Corporate CEs pages, and a Free CEs category. The home page does not give the terms of the discount plans or the corporate offer.

The catalog

The home page says there are over 300 CE courses, in mental health, substance abuse, aging, ethics, HIV, medical errors, domestic violence, nursing, cultural diversity, supervision, social work and more. The category menu is long and specific. Alongside the broad areas it has Administration, Aging and Alzheimer's, Assisted Living and Nursing Home, Certified Nursing Assistant, Child Welfare, Criminal Justice, Eating Disorder, Gender, Harassment, Homeless and Displaced Population, Human and Sex Trafficking, Human Leadership and Management, Military and Veteran, Neurobiology, Occupational Therapy, OSHA, Pharmacology, Prevention, Screening and Assessment, Sexuality and LGBTQIA, Suicide, Telehealth, Tobacco, and Trauma and PTSD. Several categories are built around an approving body or a state rule rather than a topic: ASWB Approved, CCAPP, NAADAC, NBCC Approved Courses, IAODAPCA, FLHSMV, Nevada DV Provider and Oregon DHS CEs for AFH. That layout helps a counselor who knows which board must accept the hours.

The mental health list gives a fair picture of the courses themselves. Examples include Teen Suicide Prevention and Response, Integrating Mindfulness Education for Clients in a Healthcare Setting, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Patients with Cancer, Mental Health Conditions Common Among Veterans and Their Family Members, Postpartum Psychiatric Disorders, Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health, Navigating Depression in Older Adults, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis, First-Episode Psychosis and Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorders, Antipsychotic Prescribing for Children and Adolescents, Meditation in Treating PTSD, Ethics for Marriage and Family Therapists, Culturally Responsive Care in Mental Health, Evidence and Action to Support LGBTQI+ Youth and Management of Long COVID Mental Health Conditions. The longer courses run to eight hours: Motivational Interviewing, National Guidelines for Behavioral Health Crisis Care, Screening and Assessment of Co-Occurring Disorders in the Justice System, and Prevention of Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence. There are also two HIPAA courses, one on the Privacy Rule and mental health information and one on the privacy and security of electronic health information.

The list can be sorted by newest, title or CE hours, and filtered by level: Beginning, Intermediate or Advanced. Most courses carry a level tag. Some are labeled as updates or revisions of earlier versions, and a few carry an expiry notice: Suicide Prevention Treatment and Support, New Generation Cannabinoid Designer Drugs and Medical Errors and Behavior Management will expire on 10/29/2026, after which, the page says, they cannot be taken for renewal credit.

Formats

The menu splits the library into Online CEs, e-Book CEs and Video CEs, and the online and e-book sections each have their own CE Course Instructions page. A CE Search box and an Advanced CE Search sit on every page, along with a "How It Works" link, a Login/Register account area and a CE Newsletter signup.

Who the hours are approved for

The home page lists the professionals its CE hours are approved for. That covers human resources (PHR, SPHR, SPHR-CA, PHR-CA), social work (LCSW, ASW, MSW), MFT (pre-MFT, MFCC, LMFT), nursing (RN, LVN, CNA, psych techs, OT), professional counselors (LMHC, LPCC, MAC, CCMHC, NCSC) and addiction and substance abuse counselors (LADC, CAC, CAS, CSAC, CADC, CATC, CADDTP, FACT), with elderly care and psychologist CEs also named. A second line lists counselors (LPC, LPCC), substance abuse counselors (CADC, RADT, CATC, LADC, CAS), nurses (RN, LPN, CN), social workers and MFTs.

The boards it names fall into two lists. The short one reads American Academy of Healthcare Providers, NBCOT, NAADAC, CA BBS, Florida, Texas, CAADAC, CADDTP, CAADE, NATTC, USNCB, CA BRN, CAARR and HRCI "and more". The longer list adds ASWB, the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, CAMFT, the California Board of Registered Nursing, the California alcohol and drug boards (CAADE, CCAPP, CADTP), the D.C. and Florida Boards of Nursing, the Florida Board of Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Professional Counselors, the Illinois Dept. of Professional Regulation for MFTs and social workers, NBCC, the Nevada Domestic Violence Treatment Providers Program, the Oklahoma Drug and Alcohol Counseling Board, three Texas boards (social work, MFT and professional counselors) and the United States Navy Certification Board. National and State CE Approval pages are linked from the menu.

Course-level approvals and limits

The course list is honest about where a course does and does not count, which is the detail a renewing clinician needs most. Some examples from the mental health page:

• Florida Laws and Rules for Social Worker and Mental Health Professionals (3 hours, $15.00) is approved for Laws and Rules credit by the Florida board for clinical social work, MFT and mental health counseling.
• Clinical Supervisions and Professional Development (4 hours, $20.00) counts as supervision CE for Ohio CSWMFTB counselors and social workers only, with Ohio MFTs limited to general CE. Florida's board approves it for supervision credit, and the page says the hours are reported immediately to CE Broker.
• Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan carries Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health approval #DVP-2019-11 for 4 DV Offender CE hours, and Domestic Violence Offender Program Standards carries #DVP-2019-16 for 2 hours, which will appear on the certificate.
• Suicide, Assessment, Management and Treatment meets Kentucky's mandatory CE training for OTs and OTAs but, the page warns, not the mandatory suicide training for LPCs in Kentucky. A newer suicide course is pending approval with the Kentucky Occupational Therapy Board.
• Victims of Human Trafficking (6 hours, $30.00) is not approved for the Texas mandatory requirement.
• Medical Errors and Behavior Management is approved in Florida for medical errors credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LMHCs and nurses.
• Several courses, such as Understanding Elder Abuse, Improving Mental Health Services in Rural Long-Term Care and Verbal De-escalation of the Agitated Patient, are approved by Oregon DHS for AMH, APD and DD.

Many courses also list the Illinois IAODAPCA credential categories they count toward, such as COUN, PREV, CARS, CODP, CCJP and CRSS.

Support

The menu offers Contact Us and FAQ pages, a page of outside links on mental health and addiction, government and education, a site map, and an About section with Our Staff and Testimonials pages.

Who it suits

Quantum Units suits an individual counselor, social worker, MFT, addiction counselor or nurse who needs a few CE hours cheaply and wants to check board acceptance before paying. The free-to-study model lets a learner read a course and pass its exam before buying the certificate, and the per-course notes for Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Kentucky, Texas, Oregon and Illinois make it easier to pick hours that count. A practitioner with a large renewal requirement can compare the per-course prices with the $74.95 unlimited year. It is a catalog of short online, e-book and video courses for license maintenance, not a place for live training, cohort study or a new credential.