Guidelines for Defining a Pre-Internship Practicum or Externship Experience

The applicant must demonstrate successful completion of a doctoral degree in psychology as defined below.

1. Practicum must be completed as a component of established curriculum in an approved (APA/CPA Accredited or ASPPB/National Register designated) doctoral program in psychology and must be completed prior to the internship experience.
2. The practicum experience is required for successful completion of the doctoral program; or, externships or supplemental practica are voluntarily undertaken by the trainee with the approval of the doctoral program. For required practica, students must demonstrate completion by enrolling in a practicum course that is an established component of the program’s curriculum.
3. The doctoral program maintains oversight of the quality of training provided in the practicum site.
4. The doctoral program provides specific metrics for satisfactory completion of the practicum experience, including completion of a minimum number of hours of training with a defined areas of experience.
5. The doctoral program delineates a specific set of experiential competencies that trainees are required to meet and keeps objective evidence that such competencies are met.
6. The practicum experience is not purely observational (for G1 practica, active observation using established methods, e.g., recording classroom behavioral observation will qualify).
7. The practicum experience is directly or indirectly supervised by qualified faculty (i.e., direct, on-site supervision by a qualified, doctoral level psychologist, or indirect supervision via established seminars or regular meetings by doctoral program faculty).