UK Psychologist working in Australia

UK Psychologist working in Australia - tips I wished someone shared with me

Before I moved to Australia some people were unsure if I could practice as a psychologist in Australia having trained in the UK. The good news is, yes you can. The not so good news is, it requires a lot of patience and money!

Below is the process required to practice as a psychologist in Australia and a few tips that I wish someone would have shared with me before I arrived.

Stage 1. Assessment of Psychology Qualifications:
The first form to complete is the Assessment of Psychology Qualifications which is carried out by the Australian Psychological Society (APS): http://www.psychology.org.au/Assets/Files/Assessment-of-Quals-Migration-form.pdf
This is an 8 page form which requires certified* copies of:

• certificates
• academic transcripts
• evidence of your thesis (title page, abstract and contents page)
• registration with HPC and membership with bodies such as the BPS

*Certified copies means someone signs that it is the true copy of an original. This can include people like a notary public or Justice of the Peace (this can be a rather expensive exercise if they charge per document and I needed at least 12 documents signed). Alternatively you can obtain a ‘statutory declaration’ from the Police Station. I’m not sure if the Police offer this service in the UK, but in Australia you can go to the Police station and ask for a ‘stat dec.’ and they do it for free.

Question j) of the form requires you to think back to your training years and provide information on the following:

What was the name of the practice/institution where the compulsory practical experience/supervised internship was undertaken?

What was your role?

Provide details of your supervisor(s) including name(s), profession(s) and academic credentials(s).

How many clients did you work with?

What were the start and end dates for your compulsory practical experience?

How many hours per week did you attend your compulsory practical experience?

What was the total number of hours you attended your compulsory practical experience?

How many hours of face-to-face supervision did you receive?

Tips:

• I had lost my academic transcripts but the UK universities were more than happy to post me a copy free of charge.
• The APS require copies of your undergraduate and masters/doctorate thesis, but just the title page, abstract and contents page. I did my undergraduate degree nearly a decade ago but luckily my parents still had a copy of it in the attic! You also need to remember the name of your supervisor.
• Once you have compiled all this information the APS inform you it will take up to 8 weeks. In my case it took 6 weeks.
• This will cost you $920 for the privilege.

Stage 2. Applying to become a member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS):
The next process is to become a member of the APS. This is a much shorter application form, and I suggest you apply soon after your qualifications have been recognised because they still have all your original documents.

• The 4 page membership document and can be found on the APS website: http://www.psychology.org.au/Assets/Files/2012_MemberApplication_FEB.pdf
• To become a member you are required to find two psychologists from the UK to nominate you. The pro form can be accessed via: http://www.psychology.org.au/Assets/Files/Pro-Forma-Reference.pdf

• Membership costs $505 and this include a variety of benefits such as: online CPD logging system (their website is pretty good), access to journals, online CPD, etc.

I have to say that my overall experience with the APS has been very positive, when you call the staff at the APS they have been very helpful.

Stage 3. Applying to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA):
Just when you thought it was over, you pretty much have to go through the first stage all over again. You are required to fill in the AGEN-76 form: (http://www.psychologyboard.gov.au/Standards-and-Guidelines/Forms.aspx)

• Start filling in this form while you are waiting for stage 1, so once you get the go ahead from the APS, you can immediately send this off however you cannot apply to AHPRA until you have completed stage 1.
• AHPRA have harsher rules than the APS. Transcripts have to come directly from Universities in the UK. They do not accept copies, and want to see a postmark from the UK. This can take up to 2 week to request the university to do this, and of course the time it takes to post a letter from the UK to Australia.
• You will also need to ask HPC to write a letter to confirm you are a psychologist of ‘good standing’. HPC were more than happy to do this for me and did not charge for the service.
• This whole process will set you back $827 and will take at least 8 weeks to complete once they receive your form. I called up a week after I had posted my form and they claimed they had not received it yet, so factor in another week and a half between you posting it and AHPRA ‘receiving it’.

Other Stages:
There are other stages to go through, but they are not compulsory (i.e. obtaining a Medicare Number - only if you work for a private practice, and the ‘APS Find a Psychologist Service’) but I’ll write a blog post about this another time.  

Summary:
I have found the whole process to be frustrating, tedious, and rather expensive. Patience is the key, and taking lots of deep breaths! I appreciate this process needs to be thorough to maintain the integrity of our profession, however I found the process of obtaining registration with APHRA identical to the initial process of applying to the APS. Why the duplication? It’s a shame they cannot join forces to streamline the process since they require the same information.

I have spoken to Australian colleagues who trained in Australia and they too found APHRA to be a long drawn out process - so it ain’t just cos I’m foreign!  

For me, the process from beginning to end has taken 16 weeks and cost me $2252 (£1445). However, I’m really excited to start my new job in Australia and obtain some international experience...plus living and working near the beach makes up for a lots of things ;)

I realise this post might become outdated over time so please do add comments or links below to any updates that occur.  This post was written in hopes that as more psychologists like myself travel around the world gaining more experience can help each other out.