CPD Hour Guide for California Psychologists
A Simple Guide to the New Requirements
The California Board of Psychology changed the rules for psychology license renewal in California.
Gone are the days when collecting CE certificates was sufficient to renew.
Effective January 1st, 2023, psychologists wishing to renew their licenses in California must meet new Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours. You can read the full announcement on the Board of Psychology's website.
In this article, I’ll take a closer look at the new CPD requirements and how you can ensure you are going to be in compliance with the regulations.
The 4 Categories
Psychology CPD hours in California are broken down into four main categories: Professional Activity, Academic, Continuing Education, and Board Certification.
Each of these categories is further broken down into various activities each with its own rules and regulations for the number of qualifying hours and specifics on how to document them.
A total of 36 hours spread across at least two different categories is required. In addition, 4 of your hours must pertain to Law and Ethics and 4 of your hours must pertain to Cultural Diversity/Social Justice.
Confused? You’re not alone.
Every other California psychologist I’ve talked to has had at least one question about these new requirements.
So let’s break it down into more digestible chunks and look at the activities in each category in more detail.
Category 1: Professional Activity
1. Peer Consultation
Peer Consultation includes, but isn’t limited to, case consultation, reading or research groups.
Minimum hours: 1; Maximum hours: 18
2. Practice Outcome Monitoring
Practice Outcome Monitoring is assessing patient or client outcomes via standardized outcome assessment protocols.
Maximum hours: 9
3. Professional Services
Professional Services includes, but isn’t limited to, serving on a psychological association board or committee, editorial boards or peer-reviewed journals related to psychology, scientific grant review teams or a board member of a regulatory body, program development and/or activities in service of psychology.
Minimum hours: 4.5 (6-months service); Maximum hours: 12 (1-year service)
4. Conference/Convention Attendance
Attendance at professional gatherings, either in person or via electronic means, that consists of multiple concurrent or sequential free-standing presentations related to the practice of psychology. You get 1 hour of credit for each full conference day attended.
This may not seem like much but think of it more as a bonus hour since you can still count the hours for any CEs or other qualified activities you attend during the conference/convention.
Maximum hours: 6
5. Examination Functions
Examination Functions means serving in any function related to examination development for the Board or for the development of the EPPP.
Maximum hours: 12
6. Expert Review/Consultation
Expert Review/Consultation means serving in any expert capacity for the Board.
Maximum hours: 12
7. Attendance at a California Board of Psychology Meeting
Attendance at a California Board of Psychology Meeting (full Board or Committee). If the meeting is less than 3 hours long, you get 1 hour of CPD credit. For a full-day, you get 6 hours credit.
Maximum hours: 8
Category 2: Academic
1. Academic Coursework
Academic Coursework means completing and earning credit for a graduate-level course related to psychology from an institution whose degree meets the requirements of section 2914 of the Code.
Hours credited vary depending on if it was a semester (6 hours) or quarter (4.5 hours).
Maximum hours: 18
2. Academic/Sponsored-Approved CE Instruction
Academic Instruction means teaching a graduate-level course that is part of a degree program that meets the requirements of section 2914(c) of the Code.
Sponsor-Approved CE Instruction means teaching a sponsored CE course that relates to the practice of psychology as defined in 1397.60(c).
One quarter or semester academic course counts as 18 hours. If teaching a Sponsor-Approved CE, every hour taught counts as an hour credited.
Maximum hours: 18
3. Supervision
Supervision means overseeing the professional experience of a trainee who is accruing hours towards licensure as a Psychologist, Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, Licensed Educational Psychologist, or Physician and Surgeon.
Maximum hours: 18
4. Publications
Publications means authoring or co-authoring peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, book(s), or editing or co-editing a book, related to psychology or related discipline. One publication counts as 9 hours.
Maximum hours: 9
5. Self-Directed Learning
Independent educational activities focused on maintaining, developing, or increasing conceptual and applied competencies that are relevant to psychological practice, education, or science, such as reading peer-review journal articles or books, watching videos or webcasts, or listening to podcasts.
Maximum hours: 6
Category 3: Sponsored Continuing Education
This is the classic CE structure you’re used to. It includes any approved structured, sequenced learning activity, whether conducted in-person or online. You can still accomplish the bulk of your CPD hours this way.
Maximum hours: 27
Category 4: Board Certification
Fun fact: this can count for 100% of required CE in the renewal cycle that certification is awarded. That’s right, it counts for all 36 hours!
The “Senior Option” ABPP Board Certification can count for 50% of required CE in the renewal cycle that certification is awarded. This option counts for 18 hours.
Conclusion
As you can probably tell, the new CPD system is much more complex compared to the old CE system.
While this can make it difficult to track and record your progress, it doesn’t have to be.
In fact, that’s why I created License Ally.
I was tired of trying to figure out how to manually calculate all my hours on pen and paper and I knew there had to be a better way.
If you’re feeling the confusion that comes with these new requirements, I invite you to try out the only CPD hour tracking tool for California Psychologists.