Everything about being a registrar psychologist (with Jordan Turner)

[00:00:00] Bronwyn: Hey, mental workers, you're listening to the Mental Work Podcast, your companion to early career psychology, hosted by me, Dr. Bronwyn Milkins.

[00:00:12] And today we are talking about everything you need to know about the Registrar Program. For international listeners or early, early career psychologists, you might not know what the Registrar Program is. What it is, is when you gain registration as a psychologist, and then you go on to do further studies to become an endorsed psychologist in a few areas. For example, health psychology, ed dev psychology, clinical psychology, community psychology. So it's a program in itself.

[00:00:40] And for many early career psychs, navigating the registrar program can be really daunting. There's a lot of uncertainties, there's a lot of challenges. And in this episode, we're going to demystify it all, discuss what you need to do, and just share some tips and tricks on how to thrive during this stage of your career.

[00:00:58] So here to help us out today is our return guest, Jordan. Hi, Jordan.

[00:01:03] Jordan: Hello.

[00:01:04] Bronwyn: It's so nice to have you on. And we were just celebrating because Jordan recently finished her EdDev Registrar program. Congratulations, Jordan.

[00:01:14] Jordan: Thank you. Yay.

[00:01:16] Bronwyn: So exciting. Well done.

[00:01:18] Jordan: Yay.

[00:01:18] Bronwyn: Did you celebrate or was it kind of just like woohoo?

[00:01:22] Jordan: Oh man, I should have celebrated. I feel like I'm just so time poor, I did, I was just kind of like, yay, and then I like posted it on my socials and I was like, okay - done.

[00:01:29] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's, that's the celebration. Well, maybe, you know, we're celebrating now. Well done. It's a big achievement.

[00:01:35] Jordan: Let the likes flow through. I told a few clients and they were just like, uh, I didn't even know you were doing that. So cool.

[00:01:43] Bronwyn: Like, is there any change for me? No, not really. Okay, cool. Well done.

[00:01:47] Jordan: You're like, nope, just cool. Now I get a fancy title.

[00:01:52] Bronwyn: So Jordan, just remind listeners who you are, and then I'm going to ask you a non psychology question.

[00:01:58] Jordan: I am now an Educational and Developmental Psychologist and I work in, and I work in private practice for myself. I primarily work with neurodivergent kids and adults and my special interest is, like, neurodivergent women and, um, queer people and gender diverse people. That's my thing.

[00:02:20] Bronwyn: Yeah, cool. Awesome. And your non psychology question is, what is a food that you could not live without?

[00:02:27] Jordan: You have to be, um, I know this is so basic, but it's chocolate.

[00:02:31] Bronwyn: Look, chocolate is a great food.

[00:02:33] Jordan: I was, um, I'm trying to eat less sugar now and I was just like, you know what, I'm just I'm not gonna buy chocolate, I'll just take sugar out of everything else in my life.

[00:02:44] Bronwyn: Have you got a favourite type of chocolate?

[00:02:46] Jordan: I'm just like a fan of like milk chocolate. I like things with things with milk chocolate in it. I'm pretty like, as long as it has chocolate in it. Oh. But I'll tell you what I don't like is chocolate ice cream, which is weird.

[00:02:57] Bronwyn: Oh, you know, I think that's not unusual. Because I don't like chocolate ice cream either, but we could both be unusual, I guess.

[00:03:04] Jordan: Yeah. Well, there's nothing wrong with being unusual. I love it.

[00:03:08] Bronwyn: Because sometimes I think, okay, maybe I'll try chocolate ice cream again, and then I take a bite and I'm like, this isn't doing anything. I, yeah, I don't know why I tried.

[00:03:17] Jordan: Yeah, I don't know, like, it's kind of a weird one, isn't it? It's like, it's like trying to be chocolate, but it's not.

[00:03:23] Bronwyn: it's, yeah, it's a fake. It's a fraud. Just be in your original form.

[00:03:27] Jordan: Yeah, come on, man.

[00:03:30] Bronwyn: Okay, let's move on to the registrar program then. So can you just tell us what motivated you to undertake the registrar program? Because it is a big undertaking. I'm just having a look at the document with the amount of hours that is required. It is for people who have finished a master's program or a bridging program, it's 3000 total hours, 80 hours of supervision, 80 hours of active professional development, and you have to do it over a minimum of 88 weeks. So that's just over two years or two years. And so what prompted you to do this? Like why?

[00:04:06] Jordan: Um, it's pretty funny . It was because someone offered to pay for it. And even so, they didn't pay for the whole thing, and a lot of it was out of pocket, so I hadn't considered doing it initially, but then they were like, hey, we can pay for your endorsement as part of your contract. And I was like, oh, that sounds awesome. I'll sign up for that.

[00:04:25] And then I started it, and I was like, well, I'm gonna keep doing this. Like, um, cause, you know, in the end, it's a good, uh, it's nice to have the fancy title, even though it doesn't mean that much, but I suppose we can go into that later. Yeah, I guess that that was the thing that actually made me apply.

[00:04:41] Bronwyn: Yeah, so it was the opportunity.

[00:04:43] Jordan: Yeah, it wasn't really like, uh, I'm so in love with this, but I did come to love Ed and Dev, and now I'm really proud to hold the title.

[00:04:51] Bronwyn: Yeah, like, I know it's hard to imagine alternative realities, but do you think you would have undertaken the Reg. program had you not been offered the opportunity to have the cost covered? 

[00:05:03] Jordan: I reckon I would have, just because I'm a little bit of an ambitious person anyway, and I feel like I... the kind of, the bragging rights, I guess? To say, oh, I've done an extensive study and now I, I have a very special interest area that, goes in my title. Oh, for the longest time it was called a registrar, which is a huge mouthful and I didn't think people would understand that I'm a psychologist.

[00:05:28] Bronwyn: Yeah. I, I sometimes think that as well, because I wonder whether the public understands, like I see psychologists and their title on websites, for example, and it would be like psychologist and then clinical registrar. And I often wonder whether people think that the registrar is not a fully qualified psychologist, because I think in the medical field, a registrar is like someone in training in an area, not necessarily fully qualified. Like did you have any thoughts on that?.

[00:05:57] Jordan: Yeah, I actually did have some clients, like, think that I was provisional because of it. Um, and want someone who is, like, fully registered. And, I guess, it's kind of similar to, I don't know if it's called, but like, if a, if a, like, a doctor went... like, you become a doctor when you go to med school, and then you're kind of like a generalist doctor, and then you might specialize in like general practice or like, um, pediatrics or whatever, or psychiatry, and so that's what, what it is.

[00:06:28] So for some re yeah, that's the registrar program, but we can't for some reason say that we're specialists. We can only say that we are, what's it, like, um, endorsed, which is a funny terminology thing, I think.

[00:06:44] Bronwyn: Yeah, I can't remember exactly what, what the reasoning for that is. I know it's a terminology distinction because I think in psychology, yeah, I think technically you can't specialize, like there aren't recognized specialities like a cardiologist, a heart doctor versus a neurosurgeon, brain person. And I think, yeah, it's terminology within the national law, which psychologists are registered under. I'm not fully across it, but the main thing I take away is like, don't say you're a specialist, say you're endorsed.

[00:07:14] Jordan: Um, yeah, I definitely, which is kind of like, aw man, because I do have like a, a lot of knowledge in this area. So it's like, wouldn't you say that? Like, I don't understand why, but maybe someone who's listening knows the answer and could tell us.

[00:07:29] Bronwyn: Confusing, but I guess the point is, is that you have gone through rigorous set of training. So let me ask you then, what do you feel like you got out of doing the registrar program?

[00:07:39] Jordan: Aside from, like, bragging rights, I I got a special kind of, like, um, yeah, like, knowledge in the area. Because you have to do a certain number of requirements. It held you to a specific standard for two years as far as, like, assuming that you were doing it over two years. Some people do it over more. I think I ended up doing it over three years because I had a baby in the middle.

[00:08:01] But, um, I definitely, like, you have to do a certain amount of hours of, like, supervision with somebody who's endorsed in that area, so somebody who knows, um, everything about that stuff or most of that stuff. Then you also have to do, um, active PD, so not just listening to, like, webinars, but you have to, like, engage in stuff and, and, , all sorts of stuff.

[00:08:25] And then you have to do, like, 3, 000 hours in that area, which is a lot. And also, you have to have direct client contact, so you can't do, like, 3, 000 hours of just, like, I don't know, writing reports.

[00:08:38] Bronwyn: And I guess I'll make it clear to listeners that where we're getting this information from is, I mean, if you're thinking of doing a registrar program, this document is... will become your best friend. It's called Guidelines on Area of Practice Endorsements, and it's published by the Psychology Board of Australia, available on the AHPRA website, and it has exactly what you need to do.

[00:08:59] It answers most of the questions that people have. Like I see a lot of questions in Facebook groups and they can, they're pretty much all in this document. And I'm just having a look at the endorsement for Ed.Dev So we've got, you need to know, understanding of psychological theory as it pertains to how people learn and develop across the lifespan. Knowledge of components of pediatrics, child psychiatry, neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, behavioral and brain sciences. Understanding theories of social, emotional and cognitive development, including developmental delay and disability, giftedness and special needs. Understanding a theory and application across the lifespan. Knowledge of teaching, learning and education, understanding of psychology of family and social systems.

[00:09:47] So you feel like the Registrar program helped your knowledge in those areas?

[00:09:51] Jordan: Yeah, definitely, I feel like, you couldn't not learn that, given, like, the amount of work I've had to do and study in that area. Like, I did the master's program, which gave me the, kind of, um, baseline for it, but like, my entire, like, career since becoming fully registered and before that, I was doing all of that, like, assessments. I know SLDs inside out and autism, ADHD, um, what else, giftedness, that's another area that I work a lot in. Um, I also work a lot with families and, yeah, and so, yeah, all of that. My husband's a teacher and it's really interesting having these talks with him. We like bounce off of each other, so it's really fun in that way.

[00:10:35] Bronwyn: Yeah. That's so cool. And so I'm interested to know what challenges did you face when you started the registrar program? Cause you would have been, I guess, fresh out of doing your masters. I'm wondering, did you have any imposter syndrome? Was it challenging juggling the requirements? Anything else?

[00:10:52] Jordan: For the longest time I actually didn't tell anyone I was doing the registrar program. I just kind of, um, I didn't, like once you start the registrar program, you do, um, you could officially call yourself a registrar. So you go like, psychologist, and then like in brackets, X, uh, registrar. So, edit and dev registrar is what I was, but you might be a clinical registrar, neuropsych registrar, blah blah blah.

[00:11:15] But like, I just called myself a psychologist because I didn't think anyone would know what registrar meant. Like, and so it was kind of like, what's the point? And I just didn't really feel like I was, it was worth saying it. And then like, I guess halfway through, I was like, you know what? Um, I'm gonna start calling myself a registrar.

[00:11:33] So I, you know, I started. Saying that because it's a protected term, I guess. You can't just call yourself one without being registered.

[00:11:40] Yeah, so a challenge of that was you have to really make sure that you're ticking the boxes as far as requirements. A huge thing that I did was I thought that all supervision was valid in the eyes of the registrar program and it isn't. You really need someone who's in, who's board approved supervisor.

[00:11:59] Bronwyn: Gotcha.

[00:12:01] Jordan: So for the longest time I was being supervised by someone who was wonderful and gave me amazing experience and definitely knew her stuff in the area but she wasn't board approved. So none of that supervision counted towards my registrar program.

[00:12:12] Bronwyn: Crap.

[00:12:14] Jordan: Yeah.

[00:12:14] Bronwyn: So you didn't know that. They didn't know that either.

[00:12:17] Jordan: I think they probably did know that and I should have known that, but it slipped my mind at the time and I was just like, oh I'll just claim this, it'll be not a big deal. And then when I was actually tallying up all the paperwork, it was like, oh crap, like I've totally, I've done like 40 hours of supervision with this person and none of it counts really towards the program. It counts as like peer, peer supervision, but you need, um, you need to find like a, an endorsed, um, person who is the supervisor in that area. And I suppose that's the, that's a big challenge for a lot of people.

[00:12:55] Bronwyn: Yeah. I think, I think that is a big challenge. It's what I've heard is one of the main barriers to doing the registrar program is finding a supervisor who's not only endorsed, but is board approved. So you have to do training that is approved by the psychology board and go through that training process.

[00:13:12] Jordan: Absolutely. And the other thing is, so you need 80 hours of supervision, individual supervision. Half of that needs to be with a board approved supervisor in your area of endorsement. So, that's 40 hours with them. So you have to find someone that's in it for the long haul. Imagine doing that every, I don't know, every two weeks or a month or so. And then you also, and then, a maximum of it can only be 33 percent of it. The maximum is 26 hours, I'm looking at.

[00:13:44] Bronwyn: Oh, for group supervision.

[00:13:46] Jordan: Yeah, so you have an individual supervisor in the area of expertise.

[00:13:51] Bronwyn: Okay. So here's what I'm hearing, which is that you need to have a certain percentage be individual supervision with an endorsed board approved supervisor. And then you can have a secondary supervisor who's not endorsed. But they can only provide up to 33 percent of the total supervision.

[00:14:12] Jordan: Yes, if it's in a different area of practice. Um, and then 33 percent can be group supervision.

[00:14:20] Bronwyn: So I guess like, you know, even as we're reading this and we're like, does that make sense? It's so important to read the document to make sure that you understand, um, because yeah, I remember doing my 5 plus 1 internship and the document for the 5 plus 1 document, it's burned into my brain. Um, not, not through choice, just through repetition of reading it. Um, and so it's really important to make sure you know the requirements because if you don't and you do something wrong, you may need to have, you may have to get additional hours because you've counted the hours wrong.

[00:14:58] Jordan: Yeah, and that's, that's what happened to me in the end. So I, what I had to do in the very, um, at the end of it I needed to, um, increase my frequency of supervision to like once a week, which was very expensive because by that point I was paying for it on my own and, and it was kind of like, at that point you're kind of okay enough that you almost don't need that frequency of supervision, but because I was trying to finish my endorsement right when I was supposed to finish, which was at 3, 000 hours, that was the frequency I had to put it at, if that makes sense, like in that last, like, six months or so.

[00:15:37] Um, and I'd go to supervision and I'd be like, this is what I'm doing, and my supervisor, who's so lovely, um, she was just like, great, you're doing perfectly fine, and stuff like that. So it was like, less bang for your buck if you're kind of like, at a level where you don't need that frequency of supervision, do I...

[00:15:55] Bronwyn: Yeah. So sometimes you run out of things to talk about, um, or you've talked about all your cases and there's really nothing pressing that's coming up. So it's difficult to work out how to use supervision at that frequency.

[00:16:08] Jordan: Yeah, I think it's worth noting as well is that at, at that kind of, um, time in your, your program, because you've been presumably having at least two years of, like, pretty regular supervision, your supervision starts moving away from, like, the practicalities of how you do it to, like, more philosophical questions of, um, what does it mean to be a psychologist, and what does this bring up for you, and how do you manage work life balance, and, um, how does this client, um, sit with you when you have this issue with this in your past, versus, like, how do I write a, a WISC report, or like a, a cognitive report, and having them, like, review it.

[00:16:52] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's important. Like, I remember very early on in my supervision, it was very much just like, how do I do my job? Like, yeah, yeah, like the client has said this, how do I respond and do this? And how do I write this? Um, but yeah, like supervision does turn to those kinds of process questions.

[00:17:11] Jordan: And it's, it's really, I think that's such a wonderful part of supervision is really, cause it's just like a vocation, right? We don't really, you can't be a psychologist and just be a psychologist and then go home and be your regular self. It kind of, because we study human behavior, it's like everywhere, like, you can't kind of put it aside as much as you try. It infiltrates/

[00:17:33] Bronwyn: No, it is a, it is a big part of our identity.

[00:17:36] Jordan: Yeah, which is also in itself, like, what do you do with that? And I guess that's what an Ed and Dev Psych is good at. So once we all retire, we have a big crisis of identity. Who are we, like, if we're not Psychs anymore, you know?

[00:17:48] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, uh, there was something I wanted to ask you. Oh yes, it was about professional development, because as we said earlier, it's 80 hours over the registrar program. That's a lot of hours and like, it has to be active, so you can't just read a chapter of a textbook and be like, yay me. So, uh, so yeah, just knowing that professional development can be quite pricey. How did you manage that and what professional development did you do?

[00:18:17] Jordan: Oh God. Um, I did a lot of I've actually got my little logbook here, so I'm kind of, like, going through it. Um, so you need to do CPD anyway as part of being a Psych. So a lot of it needed to be, like, specifically towards Ed and Dev because that was my area of, um, practice endorsement. But honestly, that, that wasn't, like, such a big deal because that's what I, um, was working in anyway.

[00:18:44] But a lot of it was, like, around assessment. So I, I, in my first kind of, um But I was, um, kind of getting PD in things like intellectual disability and, um, like autism and it kind of went towards, like, my interests. So I did, um, I work a lot with, like, trans youth, so there's a lot of, like, trans affirming practice that I did PD in. Some people did a lot of, like, how to, like, write, um, good, like, assessment reports and stuff like that. But I guess the other thing is, is that your, your supervision counts as active PD, I think. If you're talking about, like, a case.

[00:19:25] Bronwyn: Oh, cool.

[00:19:27] Jordan: I think, if I'm remembering that right. So, if I had, um, supervision and I was actively discussing a case of mine, it would count it as active, um, PD. Whereas if, if I was talking about someone else's case, so if we were, like, doing case discussions, it counts as active PD. So peer, peer discussions. So some of, yeah, some of, um, the ways that I did it was I had, like, a peer supervision group. So we always met up every month or so to kind of go over things, and that was free, so we did that. Um, some people have, like, subsidized, PD groups for registrars in particular. I know that APS does that. I don't know if AAPI does that, but they might.

[00:20:12] Bronwyn: Well, I guess. All the PD that AAPI does is free for members.

[00:20:18] Jordan: Oh, that's amazing. Another, like, vote tick in their box. They're all like, wow, that's great. I didn't know that. Um,

[00:20:25] Bronwyn: Discounted? And then I was just like, no, it's all free.

[00:20:28] Jordan: Oh, that's awesome. Okay. So AAPI is probably a good one you want in your tool, in your, your corner, um, For if you need PD. I went to like conferences and stuff that counts as PD. Um, just a lot of like talking with fellow psychs about stuff. I think I even used, um, some of these, these, um, podcasts as PD because it was, um, it's peer consultation

[00:20:54] Bronwyn: So I mean, like, do you check out that with your supervisor as well? Are you like, can I count this or are you just reading the document and being like, look, it fits in. It says it here.

[00:21:05] Jordan: Sometimes I, I check with my supervisor, um, if I'm not sure about it. But sometimes, like, there's a few that are pretty clear about what you need to do. I also check with other psychs who are, like, if we're, especially if we're doing group supervision, I'll, I'll, like, or peer consultation, we kind of cross check and have our own, like, logs and make sure that we're saying the same thing.

[00:21:27] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, that's a good idea. And then maybe one other tip I'll put out there because it was helpful for me during my five plus one is that if you're ever unsure about anything and I don't know, like your logbook is going to depend on it counting, what I would do is I would send a request, a written request to AHPRA, like putting in an enquiry, and then you've asked them the question, they give you the written reply and then you have it in case you need it later.

[00:21:53] Jordan: Yeah, that's true.

[00:21:54] Bronwyn: Hmm.

[00:21:55] Jordan: I'm presenting on topics as well, so if you are like, I assume you are Bron, and me, love talking about psychology to people, that's, that's considered active PD as well.

[00:22:08] Bronwyn: That's really cool. Nice.

[00:22:09] Jordan: Yeah.

[00:22:10] Bronwyn: Yeah. It's interesting reading the document actually, because it goes through a really wide range of what's considered, um, psychological practice. So it goes through and it's like research, teaching, um, any, any job really, where you use psychological knowledge to be able to carry out that work. And I was like, oh, that means it's, you know, quite broad.

[00:22:31] Jordan: Yeah. Oh, totally. As long as you can picture it as something that's actually fueling your knowledge. I didn't, I'll tell you what, I didn't use a lot of like, even though I did read a lot of resources and listened to a lot of podcasts like yours, I didn't actually log that as PD. That was just kind of like my bonus, like, knowledge for me kind of stuff.

[00:22:51] But, I think you're kind of like flooded anyway, like, I didn't really feel I think the, the thing that actually made, made it really hard for me to the thing that I was like rushing to gather all the information about was the supervision rather than the PD in the end. Because the PD kind of comes naturally as part of your work, just as long as you write down everything that you're doing.

[00:23:14] Bronwyn: Yeah. And I mean, like, you can knock off 80 hours pretty easily, I feel, as an early career psych. It's like, let's say you do, uh, you know, if a day is seven and a half hours, if you do four days, 30, that's 30 hours. So if you do four days of training, so that means if you do, if you did about 10 days of training, You would knock it out.

[00:23:38] Jordan: Totally, yeah. And also, every time you talk to a peer, about like a, like even like in the hall and you talked for 20 minutes about this client that was really tricky, that counts, you know, as long as you're logging it. So, um, and I guess I, my pro tip for that is, um, if you are working in private practice, use your practice software to flag it so that you can have a record of it. Cause that's such a pain if you don't do it. Like I've even made like a, a client for like, uh, group supervision, a client for individual supervision, a client for PD, which I, I actually heard that on the Facebook somewhere, but pro tip, cause it's such a pain consolidating all the information at the end.

[00:24:21] Bronwyn: Yeah. It's, that's a really good tip because, yeah, there were so many times during my 5 plus 1 where I was caught out and I was like, I know I did peer supervision. When did I do it? Because it was like 10 minutes. So it's like, and then you just have that conversation and you go on to the next thing in your day. So being able to log in your practice management software sounds good.

[00:24:41] Jordan: Yeah, and then you can use your little notes function to put your like notes in in case you get audited.

[00:24:46] Bronwyn: That makes sense. So, Jordan, can you just walk us through the kind of play by play of how it all works?

[00:24:52] Jordan: Um, so first you have to apply, number one you, you want to find your, your primary supervisor. So I was very lucky because my primary supervisor was the person that supervised me during my master's program. So she was already in Ed and Dev Psych and she's so lovely she, um, said she would be happy to supervise me.

[00:25:10] But if you're not sure you can actually find them on AHPRA's website. You can do, there's like a register of endorsed supervisors and you can look on there. Then, you get your, you and your, um, primary supervisor have to fill out the form saying where you're practicing, and kind of, they, they sign off on it, then you send it over to AHPRA. and then they say, okay, your endorsement, uh, your registrar program is starting from this date.

[00:25:36] Then, you do a bunch of stuff, and about halfway through, so we'll say, was it, 1500 hours into the program, um, you need to fill out a progress report with your supervisor. And I don't know if this is something that supervisors require or if it's just, um, like good practice, but usually they want to observe you doing something before they sign off on it just to confirm that it's, like, cause usually it's like you're talking to them about something, but if they actually observe you doing something, I think that's kind of more of a tick in their box, I'm not really sure. But, um, sometimes you record something with a, a client and then show it to them. So, one of the recordings I actually did was I did a PD to other psychologists about neuroaffirming practice at, um, a practice that wasn't, they don't specialize in neuroaffirming um, stuff. So it was just kind of like educating other psychs. And then my supervisor looked at that and ticked that box.

[00:26:37] So then you have like a, a form that you have to fill out that's just like, where are you at in the competencies? And it's like, tick, tick, tick, tick. And then, um, you do the rest of the hours. And then at the end, you meet up with your supervisor again. They look through the thing, make sure that your competencies are all correct.

[00:26:56] Then you submit it and you pay some money and then they get back to you and say, yay, you're officially endorsed. And you're like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Because it doesn't feel like it at the time. Like, there's, there's no actual, it doesn't feel like it's anything on top of what you're already doing other than the fact that you're probably getting a lot more supervision than you would have otherwise because you have to keep that momentum up, I suppose, to get there. to finish your supervision and PD alongside the, um, endorsement program. Does that make sense?

[00:27:29] Bronwyn: does. Yeah, and I just did a quick Ctrl F of the document on practice endorsements, and it says that it's the supervisor's responsibility to directly observe registrar's work as part of the supervision process. So, it sounds like it's like they, they just have a responsibility to make sure that they've at least observed you, let's say once. And I was wondering as well, when you apply for the registrar program, do you have to submit a plan for how you're going to gain the competencies?

[00:27:57] Jordan: No, it was really simple. It was just, um, and in fact, at the very end, I don't even know if they actually asked me to do it, to put my money where my mouth was? Like, to show all the logbooks that I had? Cause I put, I put so much effort into making this logbook and accounting for everything, which is good practice anyway. But, um, I suppose if I got audited, they would. And maybe I will now that I've talked about it on a podcast.

[00:28:25] Bronwyn: I would definitely encourage you to keep thorough logbooks.

[00:28:28] Jordan: Yes, do do that! Um, I have, um, but in the end of it, it was just like, the, how many hours did you do of this and this and this, and then you filled out the form and you sent it on its way. I'm not sure if the supervisor themselves have to kind of write a bit more, but I was kind of like, oh, what the heck? Like, I kept this like, intense log of like, every single minutiae of work I'd done for three years, and-

[00:28:54] Bronwyn: That's surprising.

[00:28:54] Jordan: -they were just like, Yeah, I know! God, I hope they...

[00:28:59] Bronwyn: I think for my 5 plus 1, I had to send in all my logbooks because I remember printing them out. So I feel like, yes, I needed to do that. I remember, yes, submitting my paperwork because I actually went into the AHPRA office in person because I had heard that they lose a lot of your paperwork. And I was like, my paperwork ain't getting lost. I'm going to hand it in directly and I'm going to get a stamp and I'm going to get a receipt. And this was before you could upload stuff online. So yeah, this, I mean, it was, it was like, when did I finish the five plus one? I mean, it was like 20, early 2020. Um, so, you know, you think that they would have upload, but no, the pandemic really hurried that a lot along.

[00:29:37] Jordan: I know, right? No, I actually remember when I finished the master's. I had to, because I had to do the same. You know, you had to send in your paperwork, but it seems like unless I'm missing something, they didn't ask me for the paperwork. They just want you to have it.

[00:29:54] Bronwyn: No, great.

[00:29:54] Jordan: Yeah. Oh god. That's scary, like, what if, what if someone just lied?

[00:29:59] Bronwyn: No, I mean, I mean, technically you could, but like, it's like, I guess assuming that the supervisor is checking your work and has the responsibility and then yeah, like you could get audited. So I mean, you could, if you're a nefarious type person.

[00:30:13] Jordan: I, I hope there's not that many nefarious psychologists out there.

[00:30:17] Bronwyn: Hope not. No, you never know. Hmm. So that's a kind of step by step of the program. And

[00:30:23] are you happy that you don't have to log your hours now?

[00:30:26] Jordan: I am but I'm a but like, worried that I'm not gonna be as accountable now? Like, I'm kind of like, oh, what if I forget to do the right amount of PD? I don't think that's gonna be a problem, but, Yeah, I don't know, like, because I, we, I was so used to it as a provisional, and I had done the registrar program right after that, so I never had that, like, joy of not having to log anything. So now I'm like, what do I do with my time? All this time I have.

[00:30:53] Bronwyn: Yeah. No, so true. And I think there's an understandable fear. Um, yeah, I think it just becomes really simplified. Like, I keep, I mean, the way I do it is I have my PD scheduled in my Google calendar. And so I can see it there. And if I need a history of it, it's there, but I also quickly log it in an Excel spreadsheet I've got notes that I take. So if I'm audited, then I can compile everything together and cross reference it, and that's pretty much how I do it.

[00:31:21] Jordan: Yeah, I think that, even though I don't, I probably, wouldn't be as thorough now, I still have, like, records with, like, the PDF done, just because of receipts and notes I've written.

[00:31:35] Bronwyn: And then, yeah, I've got a receipt folder as well. So when supervisors send you receipts, um, then I save that into a folder. So, I mean, it's, I bet other people have like more of a streamlined system. I've kind of got everything stored separately and if need be, then I can compile it all together and that's pretty much the, the most organized I can get it.

[00:31:55] Jordan: Yeah, I feel like I definitely could have consolidated mine more, and just to keep a log of it, yeah, yeah, whatever works. Hopefully, um, I don't have to consolidate it more, but you know.

[00:32:07] Bronwyn: And is there anything else that you wanted to share with listeners about the program? Your experience or anything else that you wish you had known when you started out?

[00:32:15] Jordan: I think it's a good thing to do early career, um, just because it gives you that extra kind of level of confidence and feeling of feelings of confidence once you've done it, like, because you, you definitely have done a lot of supervision, a lot of PD, and, it kind of like, in the same way that we get the, the official title of psychologist from doing all the work, this is also kind of an official thing that said, I've done this amount of work, so I'm confident to say that I know enough in this area and someone else has agreed in, legally agreed that I am competent in this area, which is kind of nice.

[00:32:55] I think a lot of people do endorsement, in clinical specifically because they get a higher rebate from Medicare and I kind of wish that was the case for all endorsements because, but I don't know, we're not there yet or hopefully we'll get there at a point.

[00:33:10] Bronwyn: Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah. It's um, it would be good because I guess like when I think of rebates, I mean, it's for clients and if clients can access someone who is an endorsed ed dev psych, then you can be reassured that they've gone through this rigorous training. Um, and so it gives clients choice, um, and I guess control over who they see. And I mean, that doesn't mean to say that someone without an ed dev endorsement, like wouldn't be of the same caliber if they've done like similar, like training insight, like let's say they've done the exact same workshops that you've done. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it...

[00:33:47] Jordan: -I definitely -

[00:33:48] Bronwyn: -clients like choice and control.

[00:33:50] Jordan: Yeah, I think the disclaimer is that, is that we're not saying that not being endorsed doesn't mean you're less qualified. It's more like, in the same way that a psychologist can say they're a psychologist and that means that they've done this amount of training. That's kind of what the endorsement does. But then again, like, like, I would say almost no, people in, in kind of like the normie world. I don't know, that's not normally, like, the, the client world know what it means to be endorsed.

[00:34:20] Bronwyn: I don't think so. I don't think it's particularly meaningful. I think it's meaningful, like medically, like we were talking about before, like a cardiologist versus like a neurosurgeon, like that's pretty clear, um, to me as like a non medical person. Um, but I don't, I wouldn't say that people in the client world necessarily know what, what, what it means to be endorsed.

[00:34:41] Jordan: And I don't think that people in client world would even necessarily know what it means to be endorsed in anything other than clinical. And clinical seems to be, like, a little bit of a catch all. Like, how, you know, if you're clinical, you're, you're kind of like, yes, I can work with mental health, but most psychs can, regardless of whether or not they're endorsed.

[00:35:03] Bronwyn: And I, I guess, like, maybe what we're getting to is, like, it's important to educate clients about, I mean, it's always part of an informed consent process, right? It's like telling clients, look, this is what I know, this is what I can help with, this is what I don't know, this is what I can't help with, kind of thing.

[00:35:17] Jordan: Yeah, totally. Yeah. And so getting an endorsement doesn't mean that, you're like a better psychologist per se. Like, again, it is just kind of like a piecef paper that says that you've done this study.

[00:35:30] Bronwyn: Yeah. I've talked about this with another guest when I was talking about certification in therapy, and we were like, does certification, guarantee expertise. And it doesn't necessarily guarantee expertise, but it is a documented record of this activity that you've undertaken, which has been scrutinized by other people. Um, so you can be reassured at least that this person on paper has had these, has evidenced these like competencies.

[00:36:04] Um, so yeah, I think it's important, but yeah, I guess just recognizing as well that some people don't have access to the same programs that, that we might have access to. So it's like somebody might be equally skilled in schema therapy to an advanced level, for example, but just not being able to necessarily afford the training, um, or additional supervision opportunities that come along with that.

[00:36:26] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I think that's, I think we actually talked about that in the Ed and Dev episode, is that there's enormous, like, privilege in being able to do this and in seeking out these endorsements and, and doing the extra training and, and especially if, unless, like, your, your workplace is gonna fund it, which maybe they won't, um, being able to afford all of that, like, it's, it's really limiting. And you have to almost recognize your privilege in being able to do that if you are doing that endorsement program. Because not everyone can afford it.

[00:37:01] Bronwyn: It's important to check your privilege, but I don't know where I was going with that.

[00:37:07] Jordan: I don't know if it... I love that super woke direction we went in. I was like, yes! Check your privilege!

[00:37:15] Bronwyn: Totally. Um, Jordan, what do you hope listeners will take away from our conversation today?

[00:37:21] Jordan: I hope it, um, gave them a little bit more clarity about what endorsement is, and registrar programs look like. Um, they're annoying paperwork to do, but it also, um, adds that level of kind of feeling of competent and comfortable and, and that ticks that box of yes, I know what I'm doing because somebody else was watching me this whole time and they said yes, they know what they're doing, which is nice.

[00:37:50] Um, and I hope that more people do you get endorsed in, in areas because I think it's, it's, uh, it's really nice. Um, although I do understand why people don't and, I just want some more buddies who are Ed and Dev because we're a small little like, uh, cohort of psychs and we're slowly like, we're going extinct and I just want more Ed and Dev psychs out there. So come join

[00:38:17] Bronwyn: me.

[00:38:17] Yeah, you heard it. Jordan wants more friends.

[00:38:19] Jordan: I do. I need friends.

[00:38:20] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:38:21] Jordan: Guys!

[00:38:22] Bronwyn: Um, I really like what you just said, because I know that therapist confidence is just really difficult in the first few years of practice. And it can be like, like to the extent that it's really impairing, like that whole imposter syndrome, self doubt, we can just be like, what am I even doing? So it's good to hear from you that it's given you a sense of confidence, um, and belief in yourself. And I think that's a really important reason.

[00:38:47] Jordan: Totally, yeah. I feel way, more, confident. Proud of myself. I feel proud of myself. I, when I got that paperwork that said that I was an edited psych, I was like, hooray! I feel so, yeah, I fancy title, yay! Now I feel comfortable and I am, um, I'm the master of psychology, and I'm totally kidding about that!

[00:39:09] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:39:09] Jordan: I'm still learning.

[00:39:11] Bronwyn: No, like, uh, when you just said that, it like, triggered, like, my memory when I got my PhD and I was just like, yes, nobody can take this away from me, forever.

[00:39:22] Jordan: Yes! Oh man, oh, so that's, I kind of feel like, um, I don't know, you can tell me if this is wrong, does the registrar program kind of the same as a PhD? Like, you've put so much work into it, and it's just a nice little thing, a title, in the end?

[00:39:39] Bronwyn: I feel like, like the PhD is like, the reason, like, I've said this in the PhD episode, but it's like, the reason why I call myself Dr. Bron is because, like, I spent eight years doing my PhD and I was like, I, like, even though I have a lot of imposter syndrome, I'm like, God damn it, I earned that title.

[00:39:59] Jordan: You absolutely did get it!

[00:40:01] Bronwyn: Yeah, so...

[00:40:02] Jordan: You, you smashed it!

[00:40:03] Bronwyn: So I'm like, I'm a use it everywhere, um, because that was a huge struggle. So, like, in terms of that being similar to a registrar program, yes.

[00:40:11] Jordan: Yeah, I was like, so I'm kind of wondering like, as far as like, because I don't really, my clients don't get... that is imposter syndrome. As I say, my clients don't get that much out of me being in an Ed and Dev. psych, but they do, because I, I did do a lot of training in area. Um, so yeah, it's, it's interesting. Hope that that was helpful.

[00:40:30] Bronwyn: No, I think it was really helpful. And Jordan, if listeners want to learn more about you or get in touch, where can they find you?

[00:40:37] Jordan: Um, you can Google me, I am jordanturnerpsych.com. Also, um, yeah, I'm just on the internet.

[00:40:47] Bronwyn: You heard it here on the internet.

[00:40:50] Jordan: I'm around!

[00:40:50] Bronwyn: Yeah. Um, Jordan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a pleasure to chat with you as always.

[00:40:57] Jordan: Thank you, I always enjoy our little chats.

[00:41:00] Bronwyn: Yeah, me too.

[00:41:01] And listeners, thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful for you. And I know I ask it a lot, but if you could actually rate and review the podcast, that would be super handy. I'm needing some Apple reviews at the moment. So if you want to pop on by to Apple and write me something nice, um, I really would appreciate it. It helps other people find the podcast, which is why I, why I ask, but also it's just nice.

[00:41:23] That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to Mental Work. Have a good one and catch you next time. Bye.