Experiences and learnings from professional psychology training partners during the covid-19 pandemic: Impacts, challenges, and opportunities

Abstract

The declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in March 2020 has impacted all of society and had unprecedented, transformational effects on professional psychology training within just a few months. This review gathers knowledge from the leaders of three of the main training partners in Canada, the Canadian Council of Professional Psychology Programs (CCPPP), the Accreditation Panel of the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Association of Canadian Psychology Regulatory Organisations (ACPRO), as well as the Editor of Canadian Psychology. We share our experiences and learnings about the profound effect COVID-19 has had on academic programs, internships, accreditation, and regulatory functions. The review discusses the training pathway from student learner to licensed psychologist; the prominent educational, advocacy, and regulatory bodies associated with psychology training in Canada; pandemic-related challenges to training; an ethical decision-making framework developed for the Canadian context that may help in mitigating these challenges; the resulting guiding and aspirational principles for decision making during the pandemic; and personal examples of the pandemic's impact on our roles and affiliated organisations. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges for professional training, the pandemic has also been a catalyst for change within the profession, encouraging expansion of tele-education and telehealth practices. The pandemic has encouraged enhanced communication within the whole training community, consensus-based ethical decision making, and has encouraged a focus on defining our professional priorities. The professional psychology training community has faced and will continue to face multifaceted and complex problems as a result of the pandemic. In the end, however, we hope to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic as a more resilient, reflective, and cohesive professional psychology training community.