Could ten-month postdoc be a problem for licensure?

[blamblam]

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Can anyone comment on their experience getting licensed with a ten-month postdoc? I don't know where I'll end up living and I'm worried some states might require postdoc hours to be acquired over at least 12 months. I'd like to clarify before I apply. Thanks!

 

[Member6677]

This isn't directly answering your question re: not my experience (yet), but I know for NJ they require 1000 client hours, which is roughly 20hrs/week over 50 weeks. They don't say anything about time commitment, but I don't think it would be likely you'd be able to get 1000 hours in 10 months. Again, this is just NJ which is notoriously anal about licensure.

 

[Zen Master]

Greg Keilin cited his experience with this very question in a recent APPIC postdoc thread:

"Slightly off-topic, but also important, is my experience when I moved from California to Texas. I completed my post-doctoral "year" of experience in California, which California defined at the time as 1,500 hours (not sure if that has changed or not). I completed 1,500 hours in about ten months and then stopped getting supervised. A few years later, I moved to Texas, only to discover that Texas defined a "year" of supervised experience as a full, 12-month calendar year without breaks. The Board told me that I had to re-do my postdoctoral experience. Moral of the story: Don't assume, like I did, that meeting the requirements of one jurisdiction means that you will be automatically meeting the requirements of boards in other jurisdictions. It's best to try to structure your post-doctoral experience to meet the requirements of as many jurisdictions as possible, just to preserve your future mobility. The ASPPB web site (e.g., the ASPPB Handbook at http://www.asppb.org/HandbookPublic/before.aspx) can be helpful in figuring that out. And, this issue is alleviated somewhat by ASPPB's efforts when it comes to reciprocity among states, and hopefully it will become easier in the future (http://www.asppb.net/?page=Moboverview)."

 

[Ollie123]

North Carolina also requires at least one calendar year and I've heard of this in several other states too.

Note that leaving your "current" post doc after 10 months is not necessarily a problem, but you would still need an additional 2 months of being supervised by someone.

 

[blamblam]

Thanks guys! Just did some in-depth Googling and so far I've found that North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia seem to require at least 12 months of post-doctoral supervised hours. Still hoping to hear more about peoples' experiences if anyone cares to share 🙂

 

[bmedclinic]

Thanks guys! Just did some in-depth Googling and so far I've found that North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia seem to require at least 12 months of post-doctoral supervised hours. Still hoping to hear more about peoples' experiences if anyone cares to share 🙂

Virginia has a loophole if you have other experience that can qualify as those hours. I was licensed well before I was in Virginia 12 months, and that was less than 12 months after graduating. In fact, it was under 9 months. In my case, that's because I had LOTS of hours form community clinics.

Then, for my first job I still had to be supervised because my boss was a micromanager, so I got her to fill out the supervision form for national register- which I think was only 1500 hours iirc.

 

[eremitestar]

I got licensed in Colorado, and they require 12 months of supervision. And when they say 12 months they mean a full 365 days, which can be awkward if you're doing a formal postdoc. I had to end my postdoc on a Tuesday!

 

[WisNeuro]

I do not believe that I would have been able to be licensed in the two states that I am without at least a full 12 month postdoc. My first one I had to wait until after completing the first year of my 2 year npsych postdoc before applying I am certain. And, the most recent state I licensed in was very stringent about weeks of clinical supervision on postdoc.

 

[FadedC]

In New York I believe you need 3000 hours total, 1500 of which can be done as part of an internship. It's a pain because I work in school psych where we have 10 month years and only about 1300 hours of work time during that year. So after internship and 1 year of supervision, I still need 400 hours. But state rules only count supervision that goes on for at least 6 months, so I can't just get someone to supervise me for the roughly 10 weeks I'd need for 400 hours, I need to ask them to do it for the full 6 months.

 

[smalltownpsych]

I kept supervision going for a month after getting my license so that I would have a full 12 months of post doctoral supervised experience just because I didn't want to have a future problem with portability.

 

[EPPP123]

I believe that the standard in Illinois is a minimum of 1750 hours in no less than 50 weeks in one setting. Must be a minimum of 18 hours/week for supervised hours to count toward postdoc requirements. No specific requirement for direct service hours, but more is better.