Understanding Provisional Psychologists
The Quirky Kid Clinic team is made up of professionals with varying endorsement and expertise, including educational and developmental psychologists, clinical psychologists, and provisional psychologists.
To call yourself a psychologist and to practise you need to register with the Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA), which is part of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), formed in July 2010. All psychologists must maintain their registration by completing a range of professional development requirements every. All Quirky Kid psychologists are registered with the PsyBA and AHPRA and are able to practice with clients, including a provisionally registered psychologist.
The information below explains more about working with a provisional psychologist at Quirky Kid.
NOTE:
- Provisional psychologists are not eligible for a Medicare provider number, and Medicare rebates currently do not apply to services provided by provisional psychologists. To accommodate for this, Quirky Kid offers a 20% reduction on our standard rates on individual therapy services provided by the provisional psychologists on our team. Please note that this discount does not apply to psychometric assessments.
What is a Provisional psychologist?
Provisional psychologists must meet strict requirements for provisional registration as psychologists. Provisional registration covers an individual as they complete a period of supervised practice before applying for general registration as a psychologist.
Provisional psychologists must demonstrate a range of applied knowledge and skills common to all areas of psychology practise that are necessary for general registration. There are eight core competencies that must be achieved in the supervised practice component of psychology training, which are:
- Knowledge of the discipline
- Ethical, legal and professional matters
- Psychological assessment and measurement
- Intervention strategies
- Research and evaluation
- Communication and interpersonal relationships
- Working with people from diverse groups
- Practise across the lifespan
What does it mean to see a provisional psychologist at Quirky Kid?
As a result of their training requirements, all provisional psychologists who join the Quirky Kid team already have experience working with children and young people, and they are supervised closely by Dr Kimberley O’Brien. Provisional psychologists are registered health professional and legally able to deliver health services, however, they are not registered with Medicare or Private Health Fund.