APA accreditation and Canadian Schools

[Student2222]

Hi there,

I was just wondering if anyone could explain the potential downside of obtaining a PhD in Canada after Sept 2015 given that Canadian schools will no longer be APA accredited. From McGill's website-"the American Psychological Association will withdraw from accrediting programs in Canada as of September 1, 2015." Note: this is for all Canadian schools, not specific to McGill.
Thanks!

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[awishingstar]

It depends on what country and setting you want to work in. Not having an APA program will exclude you from U.S. federal jobs (BOP, VA, etc.) and it may be harder to get licensed (more of a hassle at the least). It could also put you at a disadvantage for some jobs, depending on whether they prefer APA applicants.

I might be wrong on this and it depends on if the OP is American or Canadian, but Canadian residents can't work for places like the VA anyways, so that won't change much. Different story if OP is American!

 

[Ollie123]

Is it certain regarding the BOP and VA? I know there was discussion of some kind of "equivalency" being granted for CPA accredited schools when they decided to make this move in order to avoid such problems, but it was never clear if this was official or unofficial and I don't know what came of it. Seems a shame to lose the Canadian programs, especially given it looks like part of the reason for the split is that the CPA is also sick of the consistently low bar APA is setting.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Is it certain regarding the BOP and VA? I know there was discussion of some kind of "equivalency" being granted for CPA accredited schools when they decided to make this move in order to avoid such problems, but it was never clear if this was official or unofficial and I don't know what came of it. Seems a shame to lose the Canadian programs, especially given it looks like part of the reason for the split is that the CPA is also sick of the consistently low bar APA is setting.

I'm not positive, but as things currently stand, I believe APA accreditation is explicitly required. Which yes, may not make much sense if CPA criteria are more stringent, although I don't know that they'd be particularly motivated to addend the requirements.

 

[thewesternsky]

The mutual recognition agreement is official-- See here:

http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/first-street-accord.aspx

It's unclear what this will mean in practice, but CPA and APA do currently recognize that the standards are substantially equivalent, at least...

 

[cndclinicalphd]

In terms of internships, a lot of sites in Canada are dropping APA accreditation because:

A) it isn't worth the dues and

B) there are a lot of restrictions in Canadian labour law that prevent sites from taking American students (i.e. they have to demonstrate that there was not a Canadian applicant who satisfied their requirements, allowing them to take on a U.S. student, which is rarely the case). In the past, this has been a burden for some internship sites as they ended up receiving a lot of American applicants but because of the labour laws, they are more or less screened out.