Psychologist Degrees in Florida - FL

By an allied health world contributing writer
Published: January, 7 2010

Students must satisfy the following in the process of earning a psychology degree in Florida:

• Obtain at least 4,000 hours or two years of experience in the psychological field. That experience must have been under the licensed supervision of a psychologist who has met the experience and academic requirements, or the equivalent, as specified by the Florida Board of Psychology.

- The experience requirement can be equaled by work that has been done off or on the supervising psychologist’s premises, provided that any work that was done off campus was not rendered as an independent private-practice psychological service.

• Prove the receipt of a doctoral-level equivalent of an education in psychology from a program at a university or school that was located somewhere other than the United States and Canada, provided that the university of school has been formally recognized as a program that teaches students to practice professional psychology by the government in the nation in which it is established. The applicant will be required to prove that this provision’s requirements have been satisfied.
• Prove the receipt of a certification of an augmented doctoral-level psychological education from a doctoral-level psychology program’s director. This program must have been: - Accredited by an agency that has been approved and recognized by the United States Department of Education. - Completed before July 1, 1999.
• Prove the receipt of a certification of a doctoral-level program leading to a psychology degree in Florida. This program must have maintained an educational standard of training and education that is equivalent to the standard of training programs that are accredited by the United States Department of Education. The comparability certification must be supplied by the director of a doctoral-level psychology program that is accredited by an agency that is approved and recognized by the United States Department of Education. This program also must have been:

- Accredited when the applicant was enrolled and graduated from the institution. - Completed before August 31, 2001. Continuing Education Those holding a psychology degree in Florida will need to complete 40 hours of continuing education every two years, according to the Florida Board of Psychology. These credits must include:

• Three hours toward professional ethics, along with the rules and statutes of the state of Florida in regard to the practice of psychology.
• Two hours toward medical error prevention. This should include a study of patient safety, root-cause analysis, and the prevention and reduction of errors.
• Two hours toward a study of domestic violence for every third license renewal. The next time that licensees will need to fulfill this requirement is for the period from June 1, 2010 through May 31, 2012. (June 1, 2008 through May 31, 2010 is the current licensing period.)

Please note that new licensees are not required to acquire these 40 continuing education hours for their first license renewal. Also, continuing education hours in a previous two-year period cannot be counted toward another two-year period.

To ensure that the applicant’s continuing education courses will be accepted, he or she should contact the course provider to make sure that the provider has been approved by American Psychological Association, Florida Board of Psychology, or another board that is included with the Division of Medical Quality Assurance of the Department of Health MQA.