5+1 Internship Supervision: What the Psychology Board Requires

The 5+1 internship requires 1,500 hours of supervised practice in a Board-approved role, including at least 500 hours of client contact, alongside 80 hours of supervision with a Board-approved supervisor. At least 50 of those supervision hours have to be individual supervision with your principal supervisor. This article sets out what’s required and the parts that most often cause problems at progress-report time.

It’s written for provisional psychologists on the 5+1 pathway and for supervisors taking on interns. The Psychology Board of Australia publishes the authoritative guidelines, and anything here should be checked against the current version, because the requirements are periodically updated.

The supervised practice requirement

The internship is 1,500 hours of supervised practice in a role the Board has approved, and at least 500 of those hours must be direct client contact. Up to 60 of the 500 client contact hours can be simulated learning. The role matters as much as the hours, because practice has to be psychological practice in an approved position, not simply employment in a mental health setting. If your role changes substantially during the internship, that’s something to raise with your supervisor and the Board rather than assume carries across.

Hours accrue across the internship and are documented as you go. In practice the documentation is where people come unstuck, not the hours themselves. Recording as you go is considerably less painful than reconstructing six months of practice from memory and a diary.

The supervision requirement

Alongside the practice hours, the internship requires 80 hours of supervision. At least 50 of those must be individual supervision with your principal supervisor. The remaining 30 can be other kinds of supervision, such as group supervision or individual supervision with a secondary supervisor. Across the year, 80 hours works out at roughly 1 hour of supervision for every 18 hours of practice.

Individual supervision means real-time verbal communication, and it can happen in the same room, by telephone, or by videoconference. If you trained under the earlier guidelines you may remember a cap on telephone supervision and a separate allowance for indirect supervision by email or written feedback. Both were removed in the December 2025 version, so the format rules are simpler than they were.

Weekly supervision is recommended while you’re practising. Your supervisor sets the frequency and can vary it through the year, provided supervision is regular for the whole program and the 80 hours are met.

The Board also requires direct observation of your practice. Your supervisor has to observe at least four sessions every six months, including a minimum of two assessment sessions and two intervention sessions. Observation can be live or by audiovisual recording, and where your principal supervisor can’t do it in your workplace, a secondary supervisor can.

These figures come from the Guidelines for the 5+1 internship program that took effect on 1 December 2025. The requirements have changed before, so confirm them against the guidelines that apply to your own internship rather than relying on a summary.

Principal and secondary supervisors

Every internship has a principal supervisor, and may have one or more secondary supervisors. All of them must be Board-approved supervisors. Board approval is a separate status from general registration, and a psychologist being experienced or senior doesn’t mean they hold it.

The principal supervisor carries responsibility for the overall program: the plan, the progress reports, and the judgement about whether you’re meeting the competencies. Secondary supervisors can provide supervision in particular areas or settings, which is useful where your principal supervisor doesn’t work directly in something your role involves.

Before you start, check your supervisor’s Board-approved status on the AHPRA public register. It’s listed on their registration record. This is a five-minute check that occasionally saves an entire reporting period.

More on what the status means in what a board-approved supervisor is.

Telehealth supervision

Supervision by live video counts toward the face-to-face requirement, which means your supervisor doesn’t have to be in your city. For provisional psychologists outside metropolitan areas, or in roles where the local pool of Board-approved supervisors is small, that widens the choice considerably.

It’s worth using that flexibility deliberately. The right supervisor for your stage and your caseload is worth more than the closest one, and geography is no longer the constraint it used to be.

Where things commonly go wrong

A few patterns come up repeatedly:

• Individual supervision with the principal supervisor falling short of the 50 hour minimum, because too much of the total went to group supervision or to a secondary supervisor.
• Documentation reconstructed late rather than kept contemporaneously.
• A supervisor assumed to be Board-approved who isn’t, or whose approval has lapsed.
• A role that drifts away from approved psychological practice without anyone flagging it.
• Supervision used mainly for administrative check-ins rather than actual case discussion, which meets the hours but doesn’t build the competencies that are being assessed.

Frequently asked questions

How many supervised practice hours does the 5+1 internship require?

1,500 hours of supervised practice in a Board-approved role, including a minimum of 500 hours of client contact. That is separate from the 80 supervision hours, which are the hours spent in supervision itself.

Can 5+1 supervision be done by video call?

Yes. Supervision using a live visual medium such as video conferencing counts toward the face-to-face requirement, which means your supervisor can be located anywhere in Australia.

Can 5+1 supervision be done by telephone?

Yes. Individual supervision can be conducted in the same room, by telephone, or by videoconference. The cap on telephone supervision that appeared in the earlier guidelines was removed in the December 2025 version.

Do I need a Board-approved supervisor for the 5+1 internship?

Yes. Both principal and secondary supervisors must hold Board-approved supervisor status. You can confirm this on the AHPRA public register before you start.

Can I have more than one supervisor during my internship?

Yes. You have one principal supervisor, and you may also have one or more secondary supervisors, which is common where your role spans settings or presentations your principal supervisor doesn’t cover directly.

What happens if my role changes during the internship?

Raise it with your principal supervisor promptly. Whether the new role remains approved practice isn’t something to assume, and it’s much easier to resolve at the time than at the end.

Supervision with Veronica

Veronica West is a registered psychologist and board-approved supervisor working with provisional psychologists, registrars and fully registered psychologists by telehealth across Australia. Her supervision focuses on clinical reasoning, ethical decision-making, and building a sustainable way of practising. You can read more on the supervision page or get in touch to discuss whether she’s a good fit for your stage of training.