Obligations of Practising Members

All ANZACATA members who are practising – that is, engage directly with clients or students, must commit to continuing professional development and supervision. This is to ensure that they retain their capacity to practice safely, ethically, effectively and legally.

A key element of professional practice is regular, ongoing clinical supervision and Continuing Professional Development activities (CPD). Practising members bear the cost of this currency of practice in order to become members and to maintain their membership each year.

If members let their membership lapse and want to renew ANZACATA membership sometime later, they will be required to provide evidence that they have kept up CPD and Supervision before we can re-admit them as a practising member. If you have been ill and not worked, then exemptions may apply. ANZACATA cannot allow people to join or re-join after significant absences without checking that they can work competently and ethically.

Clinical supervision

Practising members must undertake 1 hour of clinical supervision for every 20 client hours (preferably for every 10 hours of client contact). It is also highly recommended that no more than 1/3 of the supervision should be group/peer supervision with the remaining 2/3 to be individual supervision. They must undertake 25 hours of Continuing Professional Development activities (CPD) annually and keep a log of both these activities. As competent professionals ANZACATA Professional members are to determine for themselves the areas in which CPD is required and to keep a log of the CPD undertaken.

Clinical supervision is a formal relationship with an experienced clinician, someone that you pay for each session and the supervisor should have no direct relationship to your workplace or to overseeing your employment. There must be no dual relationships between you and the supervisor such that you are not able to be perfectly candid (without repercussions at work). Your supervisor must be either an approved ANZACATA supervisor or one approved by APS, ACA or PACFA or similar counselling or clinical supervision bodies in other countries. The purpose of clinical supervision is to monitor your clinical work with clients and ensure their welfare is always paramount in your one-to-one work with clients and to promote your own personal professional competence as a therapist. 

Continuing Professional Development

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is defined by ANZACATA as: "A range of professional learning engagements through which creative arts therapists maintain life long learning".

The Board has avoided over-prescribing what constitutes appropriate professional development in favour of supporting individuals to self-monitor and self-regulate. It is a high-trust model that emphasises personal responsibility, professionalism, flexibility and choice. All CPD activities must be logged and many be audited.

Appropriate CPD activities may include: self-directed learning (reading professional literature); publishing a peer-reviewed article of peer-reviewing for a journal; attendance or participation at an industry relevant workshop, presentation or conference; attending online webinars; involvement in SIGs or LRGs; and public service, voluntary work and advocacy.

Further details of these requirements and an electronic logbook are available in the member only pages once you join.