Registration Process

Member country application process

Countries considering developing a sports physical therapy pathway for their members should contact the chair of the Registration board Colin Paterson for assistance and initial advice. The member country needs to design and develop a pathway that suits their country’s professional regulation requirements, CPD opportunities and ensures it is attainable for their members. The pathway will need to meet the IFSPT requirements.

Principal criteria for consideration of national specialty recognition processes are that the submitting member country must be able to demonstrate:

Entry level to the profession at a minimum of graduate level (BSc)
Specialist recognition at a minimum of M level
The scope of practice of sports physical therapy must be in line with IFSPT competencies
Clearly defined assessment criteria and processes
A national database detailing levels of accreditation/specialty recognition
Quality assurance of assessment process (i.e., numbers of reviewers/assessors, audit, etc.)
A procedure for auditing Continuous Professional Development

It was recognized that there would be national differences in how these processes were developed but the intention of the use of criteria would allow each national system to be comparable at specialist level. A variety of assessment tools could be used that would reflect national preferences and external drivers eg examination, written assessment of reflective writing, portfolio assessment. However, it was agreed that to achieve specialty recognition, it was imperative that each country seeking recognition could demonstrate that specialist level was achieved only through a combination of academic and experiential learning.

Therefore, all countries submitting applications had to clearly define both academic and clinical expectations for accreditation/specialty recognition, with a means of identifying years of clinical experience in the sporting environment, clinical skills education and M level evidence-based practice for each individual applicant nationally.

Each member country wishing to submit an application for IFSPT to approve its specialty recognition system completes an application form, providing the additional information requested.

Once submitted, the application forms and supporting documentation are to be distributed among the Registration Board members for peer review, by a minimum of three peer reviewers.

A peer review form is to be completed by each reviewer for each application. The written peer review forms will be sent back to the chair for distribution to the rest of the Board to review. The lead reviewers will then report their findings and recommendations to the Board, prior to a decision regarding IFSPT recognition of the specialty process at national level.

The preliminary documentation form to be prepared for review may be found at this link.