Course details

Summary

The postgraduate Child and Family Psychology programme is unique within New Zealand and taught by academic and clinical staff from the University of Canterbury’s School of Health Sciences with other teaching staff as appropriate.

Our Postgraduate Diploma in Child and Family Psychology was designed to meet market demand for registered psychologists specifically trained to work with children, adolescents and families.

Our programme places a strong emphasis on consideration of strengths and resiliencies as well as challenges and difficulties, all within the context of the child's environment. We focus on children’s mental health and emotional well-being as well as their learning. We also aim to reflect the social and political context of children in Aotearoa (New Zealand) with an appropriate bicultural emphasis. We also include areas such as parenting, adult mental health and relationships in recognition that children and adolescents do not exist in isolation but are part of family and wider community systems.

The content of the programme aims to be:

• Intellectually rigorous
• Based on recent international and national theory, research and trends
• Evidence- based
• Reflective of children’s ecology and contexts
• Focused on the strengths, resiliencies and protective mechanisms of children and families
• Informed by the social and political context of children in Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Graduates will have grounding in the theory and skills required for work with children, and their families in all the contexts within which they present for help and support. These contexts include health, education, welfare, non-governmental organizations and the private sector.

The professional training programme is the limited-entry PGDipChFamPsyc. This is the pathway to professional registration as a psychologist with the New Zealand Psychologists’ Board under the Health Practitioner's Competence Assurance Act (2003). Students ordinarily enrol in the first year of the Master's degree then apply for selection to this limited-entry programme in October of that year. After completing their Master's degree and the first year of the PGDipChFamPsyc, students undertake a 1500-hour internship year alongside further academic papers.

Qualification structure and duration

The PGDipSc is made up of four full-year courses or eight single-semester courses selected from a range of options. Normally the diploma must be completed in one year of full-time study, unless approval is granted for part-time enrolment from the Dean of Science.

Further study

This qualification is an ideal pathway into more advanced study. UC offers a number of scientific master's programmes as well as a Doctor of Philosophy.

Career opportunities

Postgraduate study can bring many career benefits eg, specialist skills and enhanced knowledge, entry into specific occupations, higher starting salary/progression rates, research capability/achievement and evidence of high academic attainment/self-discipline.

Entry criteria

Bachelor of Science or other bachelor's degree and approved undergraduate science courses. The precise prerequisites vary for each subject, but are normally at least a B- average grade in 300-level courses.

Other English language requirements: TOEFL PBT with a minimum score of 575 and TWE with a minimum score of 4.5; CCEL EAP Level 2 with a minimum B+ grade; CAE or CPE score of 176 with a minimum of 169 in reading, writing, listening and speaking; Pearson Test of English (Academic) - PTE with an overall score of 64 and no PTE communicative skills score below 58.