The Standards of Accreditation for Health Service Psychology (SoA) is a Commission on Accreditation (CoA) policy document that outlines training requirements for programs at the doctoral, doctoral internship, and postdoctoral levels. Correspondent to the AOP are a set of 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. Opportunities for clarification have arisen regarding an IR in Section C, which relates specifically to the SoA.
The Commission has reviewed distance education methods across all levels of education and is providing further clarification for accredited programs at the internship and postdoctoral residency levels. The CoA is proposing the creation of IR C-29 I to address compliance with the SoA by accredited internship programs as well as IR C-25 P to address compliance with the SoA by accredited postdoctoral residency programs regardless of delivery method.
In accordance with the APA “Policies for Accreditation Governance” and the US Department of Education regulations for public notice and comment, the CoA is making the proposed revisions available for a sixty (60) day period of public review and comment at http://apps.apa.org/