Public Notice: Implementing Regulations (IRs) C-8 D, C-8 I, and C-9 P

From December 21, 2020

The Standards of Accreditation for Health Service Psychology (SoA) outline training requirements for programs at the doctoral, doctoral internship, and postdoctoral levels. Correspondent to the SoA are the Implementing Regulations (IRs), which are official policy documents that “elucidate, interpret, and operationally define” the Commission on Accreditation’s (CoA) policies and procedures. IRs are divided into several different sections (A through E), which are subject to regular review and revision by the CoA. Section C contains IRs for the SoA.

Per the SoA, the CoA requires that all trainees who complete accredited training programs, regardless of substantive practice area, degree type, or level of training, develop certain competencies as part of their preparation for practice in health service psychology (HSP). The CoA evaluates a program’s adherence to this standard in the context of the SoA sections that articulate competencies at each training level. IRs C-8 D, C-8 I, and C-9 P refer specifically to aspects of a program’s curriculum or training relevant to the acquisition and demonstration of these specific, profession-wide competencies at the doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral levels, respectively. These implementing regulations, which have had information presented from all of the different levels of training, were put forward for public comment, most recently in the summer of 2020.

During the Commission’s review of comments received at the fall 2020 CoA meeting, it was determined that the IR documents were at different stages of development and that while there would need to be continued review of IR C-8 D and IR C-9 P, that the review of IR C-8 I was complete. In order to move forward most effectively and expediently, the CoA determined that each IR could be developed independent of the other two, if information from other levels of training were removed from all IRs. Therefore, the doctoral IR (C-8 D) would contain only doctoral level competencies, the internship IR (C-8 I) only internship level competencies, and the postdoctoral residency IR (C-9 P) only postdoctoral level competencies. The Commission approved this separation and also approved the Internship IR for implementation (IR C-8 I).

This announcement provides the three IRs. The CoA will continue to review the doctoral and postdoctoral IRs (C-8 D and C-9 P) and anticipates additional public comment in the future.

In accordance with the APA “Policies for Accreditation Governance” and the US Department of Education regulations for notice and comment, the CoA is making the changes available for a period of public notice at  
apps.apa.org/accredcomment.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact:

Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
Phone: (202) 336-5979
Email address: apaaccred@apa.org
Website: apa.org/ed/accreditation