New Zealand, registration – WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW!

Are you thinking about gaining registration in New Zealand but not quite ready to start the process or waiting until you have enough experience?

The main part of the New Zealand registration application which takes time is demonstrating you meet the 7 New Zealand Key Competencies using evidence from your professional development/experience.

You will need to provide three pieces of evidence per key Competency and you can use the same piece of evidence to meet more than one competency.

Only new graduates that completed a 4-year full time course sufficiently similar to New Zealand are able to use evidence from their undergraduate experience. Almost everyone else will need to use evidence from their post graduate experience (minimum 1 year). Examples of evidence include appraisals, peer reviews, courses, reflections and In -Service trainings.

The 7 key competencies are:

· Physiotherapy Practitioner

· Ethical Practitioner

· Communicator

· Reflective Practitioner and Self Directive Learner

· Collaborative Learner

· Educator

· Manager/Leader

If you are thinking about working in New Zealand here are some examples of what you can do NOW so that when you are ready to start the registration process it is much easier for you:

1. Save all of your In-Service training and courses attended including any course contents, presentation slides and certificates of attendance/completion

2.Save all resources and presentations made by yourself e.g. In-Service training, education documents

3. Be pro-active in obtaining additional feedback e.g. peer reviews after in-service presentations

4. Save all feedback e.g. appraisals, notes audits, patient feedback forms

5. Keep the 7 key competencies in mind and write reflections when you have an incident at work that demonstrate any of these

After graduating it is always advised that you do lots of the above as part of your CPD. If you are wanting to work in NZ there has never been a better time for being proactive in your professional development and saving everything - from experience this will make it 100x easier when you come to start your NZ application.