For immediate release	NEWS RELEASE April 5, 2004
Professional Mobility for Psychologists Keeps Getting Easier and Easier: Delaware and Iowa vote to accept the Certificate of Professional Qualification in Psychology (CPQ).
The psychology licensing boards for both Delaware and Iowa have voted to accept the CPQ as a vehicle for professional mobility.  By voting to accept the CPQ these two jurisdictions join 15 other jurisdictions who also have voted to accept and are currently in the process of modifying their rules procedures or laws to begin accepting the CPQ.  Those 15 jurisdictions include Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Newfoundland & Labrador, Oregon, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.
There are currently 30 other jurisdictions that already accept the CPQ: Alberta, Arkansas, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Manitoba, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. These jurisdictions recognize the CPQ as a credentialing that simplifies the licensure process and have agreed to accept the CPQ holders' educational preparation, supervised experience, and examination performance for licensure.
Since the CPQ program was designed to ease mobility for future as well as current licensed psychologists, it also includes a Credentials Bank feature which is available to any doctoral-level psychologist or student pursuing doctoral training in psychology regardless of whether or not they are eligible for the CPQ.  With the Credentials Bank, psychologists, interns or doctoral students can archive important data for easy reporting to a licensing board or other entity and they can also begin 1 accumulate the licensure related documentation of education and experience that will be required to obtain the CPQ after their initial licensure.
To obtain more information about the ASPPB Certificate of Professional Qualification Program or the ASPPB Credentials Bank, visit our web site at www.asppb.org.
Professional Mobility for Psychologists is Rapidly Becoming a Reality.
Kim R. Jonason, Ph.D.,
ASPPB President-elect

Historically, moving to or practicing in another jurisdiction has been time-consuming and often quite difficult, particularly for psychologists who have been practicing for years and whose supervisors may no longer be available to verify supervised experience.

The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) offers two programs to facilitate mobility for psychologists licensed in the United States and Canada: the ASPPB Agreement of Reciprocity and the Certificate of Professional Qualification (CPQ).  Founded in 1961, ASPPB is the association of all psychology licensing boards throughout the U. S. and Canada.  The ASPPB Agreement of Reciprocity is an agreement among licensing boards to accept each other's licensees based on comparable requirements for licensure.  This means that psychologists who are licensed at the doctoral level in one of the member jurisdictions and who have practiced for five years with no disciplinary action against their license may gain licensure in any of the participating jurisdictions without going through the often arduous licensing applications, procedures and tests.  They may be asked to meet with the Board of the new jurisdiction and they may be asked to complete a test 00 local jurisprudence laws and procedures.  There are currently 11 member jurisdictions: Arkansas, Kentucky, Manitoba, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Ontario, Texas and Wisconsin.  Oregon and Nebraska have voted to join and are in the process of changing their jurisdictional laws and procedures to make this possible.  While progress is being made in adding jurisdictions to the Agreement, many simply do not qualify for admission because their laws and procedures do not meet qualification standards.

An alternative route to licensing reciprocity is the Certificate of Professional Qualification in Psychology (CPQ).  The CPQ is a licensing endorsement credential issued to individual licensed psychologists who meet standards of education, training and experience consistent with those of Reciprocity Agreement jurisdictions.  Thirty jurisdictions, shown in the map below, currently accept the CPQ as a mobility vehicle.  Seventeen more have voted to accept the CPQ and are currently making changes in their laws and rules that will allow them to accept the CPQ.  In endorsement, a jurisdiction agrees to recognize the CPQ as meeting most of the qualifications for licensure.  When a psychology board agrees to recognize the CPQ, it has agreed to accept CPQ holders' educational preparation, supervised experience, and examination performance for licensure.  A jurisdiction may require a CPQ holder to pass local requirements such as a jurisprudence exam and may require a personal interview.

The CPQ makes mobility possible for any licensed psychologist who meets ASPPB recommended standards, even if the state or province where they are licensed does not have standards comparable to those recommended by ASPPB.  A key feature of the CPQ program is its credentials bank, which provides a way for psychologists to store evidence of their professional education, supervised experience, prior licensure, and exam performance.  Once archived, this information can be accessed and submitted to any psychology licensing board, thereby reducing hassles associated with documenting compliance with licensure criteria, particularly long after one's training and initial licensure.

For details on qualifying for the CPQ, go to the ASPPB web site, (www.asppb.org) or call 800-448-4069.

Posted 06/26/04