A practical guide for provisional psychologists on what the form actually requires, where most people get stuck, and how to get it approved the first time.
The INPP-76 is the first form that stands between you and starting your 5+1 internship. Get it right and your hours start accruing from the date your supervisor signs the plan. Get it wrong and AHPRA will come back with queries, your start date gets pushed out, and you lose time you cannot get back.
Most provisionals complete the INPP-76 once and never have to think about it again. But a significant number find themselves submitting it multiple times — because of missing documents, inconsistencies between sections, or a Section G that does not meet AHPRA's expectations.
This post is a section-by-section guide to getting it right the first time.
Jump to a section:
The INPP-76 — Internship Program Plan — is the formal agreement between you, your supervisor, and the Psychology Board of Australia that establishes your 5+1 internship. It sets out your work role, your supervision arrangements, and how you plan to achieve the eight core competencies required for general registration.
You need an approved INPP-76 in place at all times during your internship. That means you need one before you start, and you need to submit a revised one any time your circumstances change significantly — new work role, change of supervisor, change of organisation, or any other material change to the arrangements described in the plan.
Under the updated December 2025 guidelines, your hours can begin accruing from the date your principal supervisor signs the plan — you do not need to wait for AHPRA's formal written approval before starting. But you must not commence real client contact until the Board has approved your plan in writing. That distinction matters and is worth understanding clearly before you begin.
The INPP-76 form and its supporting documents must be submitted via AHPRA's Online Upload Service at ahpra.gov.au/registration/online-upload. Do not email the form directly to AHPRA. It will not be processed.
Keep a copy of everything you submit. If AHPRA queries your application, having a record of exactly what was submitted and when makes the response straightforward.
This section is straightforward — your name, registration number, and the reason you are completing the form. The reason options are: beginning an internship, changing a work role, adding a work role, or applying as an overseas-qualified applicant.
If you are beginning your internship for the first time, select the first option and note that you will need to arrange for your academic institution to send an original transcript of your fifth-year qualification directly to AHPRA. If your degree has been completed but not yet formally conferred, you can still apply, but you will need to provide evidence of conferral before you can apply for general registration at the end of the internship.
Section B asks for your principal supervisor and at least one secondary supervisor.
Your principal supervisor must hold current board-approved supervisor status. Before you complete this section, check their registration on the AHPRA public register. Search their name, open their record, and confirm that "Board-approved supervisor" is listed under their registration details. Do not assume it is current — board-approved status requires renewal and can lapse.
You must have at least one secondary supervisor named in the plan. Secondary supervisors must also hold board-approved supervisor status. Under the December 2025 guidelines, your principal supervisor now has oversight responsibility for secondary supervisor arrangements — they are responsible for confirming that any secondary supervisor is board-approved and appropriate.
Secondary supervisors can be added or changed during the internship with your principal supervisor's approval. This no longer requires separate AHPRA notification in the same way it previously did — your principal supervisor manages this.
Section C is where you describe the position you will be doing your internship in. This section has a hard requirement attached to it: you must include an official position description on your employer's letterhead for every position mentioned.
That position description must include the title of your position, reporting requirements, your responsibilities, the tasks and activities you will undertake, and your hours of work. It must be signed by your principal supervisor or employer — HR manager, line manager, or business owner — to verify its accuracy.
A position description that is missing any of these elements, or that is not on official letterhead, will result in AHPRA querying your application. This is one of the most common reasons INPP-76 submissions are delayed.
If your position is split across two work roles — for example, you work in a private practice and a community health service — you need to include a separate position description for each role and complete the details for each in this section.
The position also needs to allow you to undertake a minimum of 17.5 hours per week of internship activity. If your employment is part-time, make sure your hours of work are clearly stated and that the position description reflects the nature of the psychological work you will be doing.
Section D asks you to confirm your understanding of several key requirements by marking the relevant checkboxes. These include confirming that you will undertake a minimum of 17.5 hours per week of internship, that you will only count hours in Board-approved positions toward registration requirements, and that you will submit any changes to approved psychological work before counting time in a new position.
Section D also asks your supervisor to estimate the percentage of duties in your proposed work role that can be defined as psychological practice under the Board's guidelines. This percentage needs to be realistic and consistent with the position description you have provided. A position where 100% of duties are listed as psychological practice but the position description includes significant administrative responsibilities will raise questions.
Section E establishes your internship start date and your estimated completion date. The completion date should be based on the number of work hours per week in your role and how long it will take to accumulate the minimum 1,500 hours of supervised practice.
The key commitments you are making here are: completing a minimum of 1,500 hours of internship within five years of beginning your provisional registration, completing at least 1,360 hours of supervised psychological practice including a minimum of 500 hours of direct client contact, completing at least 80 hours of supervision with a minimum of 50 hours of individual supervision with your principal supervisor, and completing 60 hours of relevant professional development.
The five-year window from the date of your provisional registration is worth keeping in mind. If you have already been provisionally registered for some time before starting or attempting to start the internship — for example, if you entered a clinical masters program and then returned to the 5+1 pathway — that window has been running since your original registration date, not since you started the internship.
Section F establishes the arrangements for how your supervision will be delivered. The key checkboxes here confirm your understanding of the supervision requirements.
Under the December 2025 guidelines, there is no longer a mandatory supervision ratio. The previous 1:17 ratio has been replaced with a guideline of approximately 1 hour of supervision per 18 hours of practice — but this is a suggestion, not a hard rule. Your supervisor has discretion over the frequency and duration of supervision based on your needs and practice context, provided the overall 80-hour minimum is met over the course of the internship.
The method of supervision matters. At least 50 of your 80 supervision hours must be individual supervision with your principal supervisor, and this supervision must be real-time and use a visual medium — in person or by video. No more than 20 hours of total supervision may be completed by telephone.
If your principal supervisor is off-site — not physically located at your workplace — you will need to indicate this and attach a letter signed by your workplace manager and principal supervisor supporting the off-site arrangement.
Section G is where most provisionals spend the most time and where most applications run into difficulty. It requires you to explain specifically how your work role, supervision, and professional development will enable you to achieve each of the eight core competencies required for general registration.
The eight competencies are: knowledge of the discipline, ethical and legal matters, psychological assessment and measurement, intervention strategies and techniques, research and evaluation, communication and interpersonal relationships, working with people from diverse groups, and practice across the lifespan.
For each competency, AHPRA wants to see three things addressed: how your work role activities will contribute to that competency, how your supervision will support your development in that area, and what professional development activities you plan to undertake.
The most common mistakes in Section G are generic responses that could apply to any placement, responses that only address one or two of the three components for each competency, and responses that are inconsistent with the position description in Section C.
AHPRA reviewers read Section G alongside your position description. If your position description describes a role working with adults in a community mental health setting but your Section G describes competency development through paediatric cognitive assessment, that inconsistency will generate a query.
Be specific. Name the types of assessments you will administer, the intervention approaches you will use, the supervision format you have agreed on, and the specific PD activities you plan to complete. Two or three specific, accurate sentences per competency per component is enough. Vague paragraphs that gesture at competencies without grounding them in your actual role are not.
If your comments genuinely do not fit in the space provided in the form, AHPRA permits you to provide your Section G response in a Word document attached to the submission. Use the same competency headings in the document so it is clear which section each response corresponds to.
Section H is your declaration as the provisional psychologist. By signing, you confirm that you have read and agree to the plan, that you will abide by the requirements for a provisional psychologist under the internship program, and that you agree to uphold the responsibilities outlined in the Code of Ethics, the National Law, and the Guidelines for the 5+1 internship program.
Section I is the supervisor's declaration. Your principal supervisor and any secondary supervisors named in the plan must also sign. The principal supervisor is confirming that they hold board-approved supervisor status, that they have read and agreed to the plan, and that they accept responsibility for your professional training.
One practical point on signatures: collect them before you submit. A plan submitted without all required signatures will not be processed. If your principal supervisor and secondary supervisor are in different locations, allow time for the form to be signed by all parties before lodging.
Every INPP-76 submission must include the following:
An official position description on employer letterhead for every work role listed in Section C, signed by the principal supervisor or employer. If your role involves off-site supervision, a signed letter from your workplace manager and principal supervisor supporting that arrangement. If you are applying to begin an internship for the first time, your academic institution must send your original fifth-year transcript directly to AHPRA — you cannot submit this yourself.
If you are changing a work role rather than beginning a new internship, you also need to include documentation confirming the change, such as a new position description or letter from your employer.
Submit the completed INPP-76 and all supporting documents via the AHPRA Online Upload Service at ahpra.gov.au/registration/online-upload. Do not email the form. Do not post it. The online upload service is the only accepted submission method.
After submission, AHPRA will assess the application and may request further information if the plan does not initially meet assessment criteria. If you receive a query, respond to it specifically and promptly — a clear, direct response to each query point moves the application forward faster than a comprehensive new submission.
If anything material changes during your internship — you change work roles, you add a work role, your principal supervisor changes, or your organisation changes — you need to submit a revised INPP-76 before counting hours in the new arrangement.
The change of principal supervisor process in particular requires attention. If your supervisor changes, the outgoing supervisor should be completing documentation of hours accumulated to that point. Under the previous guidelines this involved the CHPS-76 form. Under the December 2025 guidelines the process has changed — confirm the current requirements with AHPRA at the time of any supervisor change, and act promptly. Hours accumulated under a supervisor arrangement that was not properly documented and approved may not be recognised.
The date from which the revised plan's hours count is the date your principal supervisor signs the revised plan — not the date AHPRA approves it. That means submitting changes promptly protects your hours.
The INPP-76 is not a complicated form. But it has specific requirements that are easy to miss if you have not read the Guidelines for the 5+1 internship program carefully. The position description requirements in Section C, the specificity required in Section G, and the need for all signatures before submission are the three areas where most applications run into problems.
PsychVault has an INPP-76 position description and Section G template built for Australian provisionals, with fillable fields across all eight competencies and worked examples from a paediatric psychology context. If you are preparing your first submission or a revised plan, it is a practical starting point.
Browse INPP-76 templates and resources on PsychVault
PsychVault is a marketplace for psychology and allied health resources built by Australian clinicians. This post is a practical guide and does not constitute official AHPRA advice. Always refer to the current Guidelines for the 5+1 Internship Program on the Psychology Board of Australia website.
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