(Heather Gridley)

The Master of Applied Psychology program at Victoria University had its first intake in 1994, and has subsequently admitted students every second year. The program was designed to meet the increasing demand for postgraduate coursework options in Psychology, in the light of the APS move towards a six-year training requirement for full membership of the Society. The program built on the highly successful Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology, which had been running since 1990.

The major advantage of a Masters program lies in the opportunity for extensive practicum and research experience which is beyond the scope of a fourth year. In addition to offering specialist training in Community (and Sport) Psychology, we intended the course to provide generalist training for probationary psychologists who would be eligible for professional registration on completion. It was therefore important to include a solid component of professional psychological practice, comprising ethics, assessment, basic counselling and organisational systems training Victoria University has established strengths in applied research, and we are one of very few Psychology departments to accord equal weight to qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Evaluation research continues to be a feature of the Graduate Diploma, and is also a focus in several subjects within the Masters program.

With two intake cycles completed and a third underway, five students from the Community Psychology stream have now graduated and a number of part-time students are expected to finish in the next six months. Their areas of employment are diverse - some have built on previous employment (in the clergy, in counselling and in women’s support services), while others have gained employment as a direct consequence of their practicum experience.

A recent graduate commented that what she valued about the Victoria University program in comparison with her first four years of psychology studies was that we had "allowed the course to unfold with the students’ needs". Victoria University prides itself on its policy of personalised access and its reputation for high-quality teaching. We think these are strengths of the Masters program, but the same strengths make it difficult to generalise about our progress so far. The list below of completed thesis research projects gives some idea of the diversity of student undertakings, and a list of placement experiences would be equally varied.

One thing I would like to see emerge more clearly over the next couple of years would be a sense of identity for the Masters program similar to what has been developed around Community Psychology in Western Australia or New Zealand. For example, our Graduate Diploma students seem to be carving out an employment niche within community mental health – it is not yet clear where the philosophy, research, and practice elements of the Masters program will coalesce in terms of a unified "brand" of Community Psychology recognisable within the profession in Australia, and in pragmatic terms of a specific market for graduates. The challenge for Community Psychology is to retain its strong value base, including its emphasis on diversity and inclusiveness, while accommodating current (and changing) marketplace and professional realities.