The New APS Supervision Guidelines (2025): A Deep Dive into Professional Oversight

May 25
You may have noticed a series of documents being released by the APS over the past few months. Many psychologists have asked what they are, and how they fit alongside the new Psychology Board Code of Conduct.

The good news is that these are not another layer of bureaucracy, as many fear. They are designed to be helpful. One way to think about the relationship is this: the Code of Conduct sets the road rules, while the APS guidelines are more like updates from the RACQ (NRMA, RAC, RACV, etc.) practical guidance designed to help you interpret and apply those rules in real-world conditions.

The APS has been producing professional practice guidelines like this for decades. The reason we are now seeing a cluster of new or revised guidelines is simple: the road rules have changed.

In this article, I want to focus on just one of those guidelines: the APS Professional Practice Guidelines on Supervision (2025). This guideline is particularly helpful because the Code of Conduct contains supervision-related obligations scattered throughout the document. While most supervision-specific material sits in Section 10, requirements around privacy, boundaries, competence, records, impairment, and conflicts of interest all intersect directly with the task of supervision.

What Stays the Same (and What Is Now Explicit)

Under the Code, supervision is defined as a psychological service. As recipients of that service, supervisees fall within the Code’s definition of clients. This means supervisors must comply with the same core obligations that apply to any other service provision: informed consent, confidentiality, competence, and record keeping.

This was broadly true under the previous ethical framework, but the current Code is far more explicit. Once you accept supervision as a client service, the rest of the guideline flows logically from that foundation.

1. Competence: Just Being Experienced Isn’t Enough

One of the clearest messages in the new guidelines is that supervision is a specialised psychological service in its own right.

Being an excellent clinician does not automatically make someone competent to supervise. Supervisors must have specific training and skills in assessing practice, providing feedback, and addressing ethical and professional issues.

Key implications include:
  • Formal supervision roles: If you are supervising for a training program or Board requirement, you must be credentialed as a PsyBA-approved supervisor and demonstrate competence in assessment and reporting.
  • Ongoing self-review: Supervisors are expected to engage in regular self-assessment and seek structured feedback on their supervision.
  • Cultural safety applies here too: The same cultural safety principles that apply in clinical work apply to supervision. Supervisors must be alert to how personal attitudes (e.g., around gender, culture, age, or power) shape the supervisory relationship.
  • When things get tough: If a supervisor becomes the subject of a serious allegation or potential impairment, they must actively consider whether it is appropriate to continue supervising while the matter is resolved.

What is more explicit than in past guidance is that supervisors who do not provide appropriate supervision may themselves be held responsible for a supervisee’s conduct. This reflects supervision’s recognised gatekeeping function.

2. Informed Consent: Get It in Writing (The Supervisory Contract)

The guidelines emphasise that informed consent is an ongoing process, not a single signature.

Before supervision begins, supervisors and supervisees should collaboratively develop a supervision agreement that clearly sets out the purpose, expectations, and limits of the relationship.

A robust supervision agreement should address:
  • the purpose and methods of supervision
  • roles and responsibilities of both parties
  • logistics (frequency, format, fees, record keeping)
  • evaluation processes and conflict resolution pathways
  • emergency procedures, including when and why they would be activated

If supervision is fee-based, this must be agreed to in advance to avoid any sense of exploitation or coercion.

The emphasis on emergency procedures reflects the reality that supervision often functions as a safety mechanism, particularly for provisional psychologists and registrars.

3. Confidentiality: The Three-Way Relationship

Confidentiality in supervision is inherently complex because it involves three parties: the supervisor, the supervisee, and the supervisee’s clients.

Supervisors must maintain the confidentiality of both supervisee and client information, while also being clear about the limits of confidentiality.

Key points include:
  • Client awareness: Supervisees must inform clients that they are working under supervision and obtain consent for client information to be shared in that context.
  • Identifiability: Clients should be told whether their information will be shared in identifiable or de-identified form, and why.
  • Group supervision risks: In group supervision, supervisors must ensure supervisees are not pressured to disclose personal information and that material from individual supervision is not shared in group settings without consent.
  • Mandatory notifications: Both supervisors and supervisees must understand that information obtained in supervision may need to be disclosed if mandatory notification thresholds are met.

One of the most common supervisory risks arises from informal spillover of material between individual and group supervision without explicit consent.

4. Record Keeping: Treat It Like a Client File

Historically, supervision records sat in a grey zone. The new guidelines remove that ambiguity.

Supervision records must meet the same standards as any other psychological service.

Records should accurately reflect:
  • the date of supervision
  • issues discussed
  • guidance provided
  • outcomes or agreed actions

These records support training programs, progress reporting, and continuity if supervision arrangements change. Importantly, supervisees are also strongly advised to maintain their own independent supervision records. Parallel records protect both parties and reduce ambiguity.

5. Boundaries: Respect the Power Balance

The guidelines explicitly place responsibility for managing boundaries on the supervisor, reflecting the inherent power differential in the relationship.

Key boundary expectations include:
  • Avoid compromised relationships: Supervisors must not supervise partners, close friends, or relatives.
  • Dual roles: Where a supervisor is also a line manager or employer, risks to objectivity must be identified, discussed, and documented. If roles are separated, reporting lines and information-sharing expectations must be clear.
  • Not therapy: Supervisors must not provide counselling or psychometric assessment to supervisees. If personal support is needed, referral to external services is required.
  • No sexual or close social relationships: These are explicitly prohibited.

While reflective supervision may involve personal material, supervisors must not coerce disclosure, and personal material should always be linked to professional development rather than personal therapy.

6. Supervision in Research

For supervisors involved in research or academic contexts, the guidelines emphasise early and explicit discussion of authorship.

As a general principle, supervisees should be principal authors on work substantially based on their thesis or dissertation. Authorship disputes are treated not as academic technicalities, but as boundary and power issues, and should be managed transparently from the outset.

Supervisors must also remain familiar with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and relevant institutional requirements.

What This Means for You

For most psychologists, these guidelines do not represent a radical shift. Instead, they confirm and sharpen practices many supervisors already value: clear contracts, thoughtful boundaries, and careful documentation.

The shift is less about doing more work and more about being deliberate in the work you already do, particularly when situations become complex.

A useful reflective question encouraged by the guidelines is:
Is this decision safe, respectful, and defensible—and can I clearly explain how I reached it?

You do not need to read the entire guideline today. A more realistic approach is to know it exists and return to it when:
  • starting a new supervision relationship, or
  • navigating a difficult ethical or professional decision.

Used in this way, the APS Supervision Guidelines function exactly as intended: not as bureaucratic burden, but as a practical companion to contemporary supervision practice, supporting supervisee development while ensuring supervision remains robust, ethical, and defensible.