Competency-based standards and guidelines for psychology practice in Australia: opportunities and risks

ABSTRACT

Recent changes to clinical psychology training and supervision in Australia have been driven by a deliberate endeavour by regulatory authorities and professional bodies to align education and training with competency-based models of training, a development that is apparent internationally across health disciplines. A critical question is: how do reforms in Clinical Psychology training standards match international benchmarks for competency-based pedagogies?

Objective: To outline key principles of competency-based pedagogies and to critically examine whether Australia’s new standards and guidelines for accreditation of coursework, practicum requirements, and supervision are consistent with competency principles, and match similar guidelines proposed in the U.K. and the U.S.A.

Method: Following a critical analysis of the extant literature, the authors highlight progress achieved, discuss major gaps and challenges, and examine the extent to which current accreditation changes constitute a reliable blueprint for the development of a competent psychology workforce for the country.

Results and Conclusions: The current review indicates that in an overall sense, practitioner training in Australia is tracking well in comparison to international developments. Specifically, the decreased emphasis on the regulation of inputs (e.g., nature and type of coursework and practicum) is pedagogically sound and has the potential to promote training innovation and efficiencies. However, a revision of the current competency framework is required to underpin future progress. Also, the lack of reliable and valid competence instruments in combination with less than rigorous adherence to systematic, timely, and ecologically valid assessments constitute a major challenge and a serious threat to ensuring safe and competent psychology practice.

KEY POINTS

What is already known about this topic:

(1) Competency-based education and clinical training play important coordinated roles in ensuring the competence of clinical psychologists, consistent with the accreditation standards and registration requirements of the Psychology Board of Australia.

(2) The Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC, 2019) have recently published new accreditation standards for psychology programs that are based on competency principles.

(3) The shift to the new paradigm is both exciting and challenging. It is exciting because it provides opportunities for innovation; it is challenging because it demands systemic change.

What this topic adds:

(1) The current paper compares and contrasts current standards and guidelines for accreditation in Australia with their counterparts in the U.K. and the U.S.A.

(2) Although significant progress has been made in Australia, additional implementation efforts should be taken to establish a comprehensive and authoritative competency framework, incorporating empirically-supported means of assessment. Such a framework should be fit-for-purpose providing a grid that maps shared and unique aspects of competencies across registration levels and specialised endorsements.

(3) The progressive relaxing of input criteria has the potential to seriously compromise the commitment to safe and competent psychological practice if training institutions do not adopt a re-designed system of ecologically valid assessments both during training and at the point of entry to the profession.

(4) The need to ensure competence is maintained throughout a psychologist’s career will remain a major challenge, given the ongoing and rapid advance of science. A commitment to the competency-based approach provides the necessary scaffolding for ongoing professional development.

KEYWORDS:

• Accreditation standards
• competency frameworks
• Australian clinical psychology training
• clinical supervision
• international benchmarks in clinical psychology training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.