RAPS has been sent another email leak from the Clinical College showing more apparent abuse of APS campaigning rules and misuse of mailing lists by the Clinical College! Now they are using students to further their agenda.
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:54:08 AM
To: <name withheld>
Subject: Calling all students to use your networks
A group of psychologists are intending to remove only those who are clinical psychologists from the APS Board of Directors. This is an attempt to form a new board for their own political agenda; their stated goal is to move the APS position to a “one tier Medicare”recommendation to government.
Several outcomes are possible, but one that needs to be considered is that the government may re-examine the role of psychologists in Better Access. Public statements devaluing post-graduate training undermine the public perception of psychologists, when psychologists have fought so hard for recognition of our skills.
There are now pathways between areas of practice endorsement as well as into areas of practice endorsement. This allows all psychologists access to the higher rebate regardless of their original training pathway.
So how can you help?
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If you are receiving this email you are a student member and therefore unfortuntely not eligible to vote/provide a proxy (only associate members or full members are eligible). So how can you help? Call on your networks and get them to act. You may know members who can vote. What you are able to do with your network may be the difference. |
More details for those able to vote are attached.
This is an important moment for the APS and the Clinical College
Thank you.
Tamara Cavenett
Chair APS College Of Clinical Psychologists (National)
Reform APS 
Hi RAPS, am curious about the sentence that has been removed from the email above and am wondering why you wouldn’t want your group to see it?
The unredacted version of the first paragraph of the Clinical College email sent to members actually reads:
“A group of psychologists are intending to remove only those who are clinical psychologists from the APS Board of Directors. This same group was against a more diverse board at the EGM. This is another attempt to form a new board for their own political agenda; their stated goal is to move the APS position to a “one tier Medicare” recommendation to government.”
The redacted statement about your position on the EGM is indisputably true given that your campaign against it is documented in these pages.
You present yourselves as providing full information to members so its concerning when discrepancies arise in the information you provide. This sort of thing raises questions about what other information you may have distorted, at best inadvertently, or at worst, deliberately . Your members deserve full and accurate reporting every time and I hope that this discrepancy encourages some of your members to seek collateral information elsewhere to ensure they’re getting a full and accurate picture of the issues raised here.
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Well, it is not as if RAPS or their supporters has done anything to convince students (I.e future psychologists) that RAPS has any interest in representing them.
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Well RAPS has not created the division and disunity within Psychology via the PBA Endorsement fiasco and Medicare debacle have they!
In my opinion ….The clinical pathway students and junior practitioners with clinical endorsement are by default the innocent party in this problem …doing what they need to do to survive within the current climate of clinical influence and perceived control (so its ok for Board Members to be a Clinical majority for so many years but when we mere non clinicals seek balance to address perceived bias all non clinicals are the paranoid enemy????)…. the clinicals are taught that they are the specialists in the world of mental health (too bad they are not taught ethics and national law – in breach if you define yourself as specialist or believe you are and therefore promote your higher competency compared to your collegues) and by default all other areas of direct client ( or patient as the clinicals like to call it) psychological THERAPY! NO FOCUSSED PSYCHOLOGICAL STRATEGIES FOR THEM…, even though they are ALL THE SAME evidence based therapeutic frameworks that guide our practice!!
I would do the same if I was an emerging psychologist…. job security guaranteed from the get go!
In my opinion CLINICAL COLLEGE , CLINICAL ENDORSEMENT GROUP THINK AT PLAY HERE! http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm
It is evident that this false dichotomy of 2 tiers embedded only within Medicare with this unbelievable insult of focussed psychological strategies (coined for GP Medicare training) the public has been told is provided by generalists (2 slaps in the face here) has now spread across all areas of psychology that provide direct client services ie “clinical” services and increasingly students are entering into the Masters of Clinical as emerging clinicals…. because it is the ONLY way to go… DARWINIAN Theory OF NATURAL SELECTION – SURVIVAL INSTINCT!
Cant find a direct client job in mental health field (now branching into other direct client work) that doesnt require either a clinical master or clinical endorsement as basic mandatory criteria….so who do you think they would be identifying with? Yep obviously the Clinicals!
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On the contrary J Dwyer, many students fully support RAPS. I should know I am one!
It is clear, even to students, that the two-tiered system is inequitable and unjustifiable. It has to go; it is the root cause of all the current problems and is not only dividing the APS but the profession of psychology in Australia.
Until there is parity in the Medicare rebate system and an appreciation of the diverse expertise of all psychologists and training pathways to registration there can be no unity.
RAPS is simply stating the obvious and is unlikely to be placated until these legitimate concerns are addressed. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.
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I too am a student and support RAPS. I agree that that the two-tier Medicare rebate system is an unfortunate development that inappropriately favours clinical psychologists at significant expense to public funds, in the absence of evidence to justify this inequity and in the face of decades of contrary research that that clearly suggests that all psychologists treating mental health concerns offer equivalence in practice outcomes thus confirming the lack of justification for such disparity in remuneration between different psychology groups. I also agree that the higher rebate for the Clinical College is attracting students for the wrong reasons (i.e. money) and alternative psychological training is being seriously threatened and recklessly abandoned by universities. As students, we lack the life experience to appreciate the value of experience over formal university training. As such, it is best to wholeheartedly support RAPS in all their efforts to make the field fair for psychologists.
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Hi Laura,
firstly, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg supports everyone moving to the top tier. If you’re worried about the use of public funds for the provision of psychological treatment, you shouldn’t vote for him because the thing you’re concerned about will get worse not better if he is elected.
Secondly, if you’re a student, you must understand the value of a higher education. RAPS has been clear that their position is that higher education does not value add to a person’s knowledge or skill in the practice of psychological counselling. How does that sit with you?
Finally, the government pays a higher qualification allowance to psychologists in recognition that higher qualifications deserve a commensurate increase in remuneration. With all the hard work and sacrifice you’re putting in as a student to get a higher degree, do you think it fair that someone who’s decided not to get a higher degree should be paid the same as you?
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As a Clinical Masters student, I join with my fellow students in supporting RAPS. All my two years of study as a Clinical Masters student has taught me is that it is not enough to prepare me for the demands of practicing as a psychologist. I am embarrassed and ashamed that I will be getting a higher rebate from Medicare when I graduate then more experienced and capable psychologists because of an arbitrary label. I am angry at my Clinical lecturers who perpetuated the falsehood amongst my fellow students the ‘generalist’ and how their training and capacity to practice is limited, and did not teach us the evidence that Government commissioned research on the two-tier system shows very clearly that as a group of professional’s psychologists provide great outcomes regardless of artificial labels. I hope all my fellow students will help RAPS fight for a future where all psychologists, including we young people, are united. Please, fellow students, use your social networks and remind everyone you know to vote to RAPS representatives in the vacant Director positions and to support the motion for a spill at the AGM.
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Thank you, Steven. What a hero
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Hi James Caulfield,
are you an undergraduate or a post graduate student? If a PG, do you think that people without a higher degree should be paid the same as people who do? That is the position you’re advocating when you advocate for a single tier system.
If so, that position is entirely inconsistent with the way people in the real professional world are paid.
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It was the real professional world that called it a post grad degree!
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And what will RAPS do about it?
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And what will the APS do about it? Is the Clinical Chair in breach?
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Im lost in a reflective moment…..History repeats… the clinical chair many years ago lobbied very hard in mobilizing his cohort to support the 2 tier and flood the senate inquiries with their submissions …. they learn from the best…..
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We’re onto it, Greg.
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