Cancellation of the 4+2 Pathway to Psychology Registration

Wondering what to do about registration as a psychologist now that the 4+2 pathway has been retired/cancelled?  Let Dr Paul provide you the insights into the reason why the pathway was retired and what your options are now.  You will need to choose an alternative pathway to general registration such as the 5+1 internship pathway or the higher degree pathway. These pathways take the same time to complete as the 4+2 internship - they all take six years from the beginning to the end of training. An online search is available for all approved programs of study.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Dr. Paul. Edgy by name and by nature. The Psychology Podcast will provide you with a competitive edge from education through to registration. Dr. Paul supports your transformation into becoming a psychologist, counsellor or allied mental health practitioner. Now here's Dr Paul. 

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, radio around the world today. Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. My name is Dr Paul, and I'm doing this particular episode on the Pathways for Registration in the Psychology field, in particular with the news that on June 30, 2022, the cessation of the 4+2 program, It was retired by the Psychology Board through APRA and favor of different pathways. And this particular episode is to provide you with some understanding of what happened with Cyboard and the 4+2 internship program retirement and what your options are moving forward. Let's have a look at the background first. 

So prior to June 30 in 2022, there was multiple pathways, including what was termed an internship, that meant that you could undertake a 3 year or 4 year program accredited by the Australian Psychology Council accreditation board, an APAC course for one of the better term, and you could then elect to register as a provisional psychologist and work in private practice under supervision with a supervisor to meet the milestones for registration as a general psychologist. The program also catered for people who wanted to try and earn some income whilst they were also becoming a registered psychologist, and so the program had quite a lot of utility. 

The original announcement of the retirement of the 4+2 internship pathway for general registration was actually announced back in April 2019. And on April 3rd in that particular year, the Ministerial Council approved the revised general registration standard for provisional registration by removing the 4+2 pathway and revised the standard to take effect on the 1st of January, 2029. That is the retirement date for the internship program. So anybody who is currently doing a 4+2 internship program must complete it by January 1st, 2029. However, 30th of June this year, 2022, they are no longer accepting people into that program. So you can no longer use the 4+2 pathway for general registration. So the big question on everybody's mind is why was the 4+2 pathway for general registration retired? And it was retired because it was put in favour of a 5+1 internship program. and this is going to reduce the regulatory burden of psychology training, because instead of doing two years of practical placement in the field, the 5+1 takes on a fifth year of study and one year of internship. 

PsyBoard went on to say that the 4+2 internship program was unsustainable and carried high regulatory and administrative burden for employers, supervisors, interns and regulator. And the 4+2 is not compatible to international benchmarks for training and registration, and that there were significant risks associated with the two-year, unaccredited internship. While the pathway has a long history of serving the profession and employers well, and has produced many high-quality practitioners, the pathway is no longer fit for purpose in the current or future context, and so the retirement of general registration through 4+2 was provided to the council and accepted by the council. The benefits that it believes it will gain are an increased public protection, strengthening risk management, improving training equality and consistency, improving international coolancy of training standards, and improved the use of accreditation and reduced costs in administration and burden for trainees, employer's supervisors and the regulator at large. In comparison to the 4+2, the 5+1 internship program has the advantage of an additional year of accreditation that provides interns a better model for training and learning. So for anybody out there on the 4+2 internship and you want to know what happens to you, the retirement of that pathway does not impact your general registration, it's only for new registrants. And so the pathway that was recognized for your registration at the time you are registered will not be affected and you will end up becoming a generalist psychologist at the end of the program. I've had a number of questions from students saying I didn't get my application in on the deadline, what will happen with my application? And unfortunately, Psychology Board through APRA has said that there will be no special consideration for people who did not meet the deadline and it was a hard deadline, meaning you will not have any flexibility in it. 

We are aware that when planning for the retirement of the 4+2 pathway, a number of people would likely be impacted by its closure and that when the announcement came out on the deadline for June 2022, APRA said that students' requests for late applications or exemptions will not be considered for the pathway. Let's have a look at the 5+1 pathway in a little bit more depth. So it's a general registration pathway with a five year sequence of accredited study and that typically means a master of professional psychology and master of professional psychology programs have been popping up all over the place you will find them at all good psychology institutions and these accredited programs will provide you with the fifth year and then you will have one year of supervised service as part of your internship and it will be likely to be an intensive internship and training program and you will be able to demonstrate the eight core competencies required for general registration. 

During that full year, you will consolidate your skills, your knowledge, develop your understanding through your studies and apply them in a practical setting. And so this really involves having a psychological practice carried out in an approved workplace. You will be supervised by a board approved supervisor and you will undertake professional development activities. At the end of your internship, and this is vitally important, you will still be required to sit the National Psychology Entrance Exam and then you can apply for general registration. Provisional registration will be given to you before starting your fifth year degree, so you need to go through and apply for general registration for the entire duration of your degree and your internship, which means that you need to renew your provisional registration annually from the date you were initially approved and you can go to the provisional registration page on APRA's website. Some higher education institutions will probably arrange for internships for students in their fifth year or you can likely arrange your own internship by finding a suitable work role or supervisor. 

There is a list of approved supervisors on the APRA website for you to be able to undertake that. Once you have developed an internship plan you submit that to APRA and they approve that along with any other evidence required for a successful application into the fifth year program, including the additional one year internship program. The alternative to the five plus one internship program is a higher degree registration pathway. The high degree pathway has general registration and it involves an accredited sixth year sequence of study in psychology. Typically you would do a four year undergraduate program with an honours year or equivalent, followed by postgraduate degree of two or more years in duration such as doing a master's or a doctorate. 

The accredited postgraduate degrees will be listed on cyborg's information pages so if you go there you'll be able to find all the degrees that meet the criteria for registration. Again you'll have provisional registration and that registration will get you through the entire course work units and any placements you do as a function of the course that you do. You need to renew your registration each year. An interesting feature of the master's or doctoral pathway for registration is that if you are undertaking one of these pathways you may be able to apply for early general registration. 

Once you've completed the requirements of the fifth and sixth year level master's program or PhD program this means completing all coursework and placements with sufficient progress with the the thesis to the point where it's really equivalent to the size and the scope of a master's thesis. So if you're undertaking a PhD and you've done all your placements and all your coursework and you've got about 40,000 words or thereabouts equivalency, you can probably likely apply for general registration. So that's the latest news on the cancellation of the 4+2 internship pathway for becoming a psychologist. 

I hope that you find the information contained within this very short podcast useful in making your decision about where you're going to go on your psychology journey if that's where you choose to go. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. This is Dr Paul signing off from the Psychology Podcast. Catch you all next time. (upbeat music)