Revised standard for general registration published today

15 Feb 2016

The Psychology Board of Australia has today published a revised registration standard for general registration.

The revised general registration standard was approved by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council on 6 November 2015 and will take effect from 2 May 2016.

The standard has been reviewed as part of a scheduled review of the current version of the standard which has been in place since 1 July 2010. A public consultation paper was published as part of the review and submissions to the consultation are published on the website under Past consultations.

The revised standard will apply to all applications for general registration made from 2 May 2016. It has been published in advance of its commencement date to enable individuals intending to apply for general registration plenty of time to review the revised standard before it comes into effect.

Revised registration standard

The revised standard will not introduce any new requirements for general registration and will continue to recognise all current pathways to general registration including accredited higher degree programs, internships, and transitional programs for overseas-qualified applicants.

The revisions to the standard primarily improve the structure and update the terminology to explain existing requirements more clearly, and align the standard more closely with the requirements under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, as in force in each state and territory of Australia.

There will be some minor changes to the requirements for applicants for general registration on completion of a period of supervised practice. This may affect individuals currently completing a 4+2 or 5+1 internship program or a transitional program who intend to apply for general registration on 2 May 2016 or later. However none of the changes will require current supervisees to submit a new supervised practice plan.

The key changes are:

• core competency #7 – 'working within a cross-cultural context’ has been renamed as ‘working with people from diverse groups’
• internship hours for 4+2 and 5+1 internships have been rounded down to 3000 and 1500 hours with small reductions in minimum supervision and client contact hours – this may allow some interns to apply for general registration slightly earlier than previously planned
• case studies for internship programs will be renamed case reports

The revised standard also specifies the number of case reports (case studies) to be submitted to the Board. For 5+1 interns there is no change. For 4+2 interns this will change from three to four; but only for new internship programs. Current 4+2 interns will still only be required to submit three satisfactory reports, as per their current supervised practice plan.

The Board will publish more information on the changes, including transition provisions, and will write to affected registrants before the revised standard comes into effect.