ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the accreditation of core competencies, looking across different counties and continents. Processes of formal training, continuing education, and supervision/mentoring are all covered elsewhere in this encyclopedia. Professional accreditation is a structured approach used to recognize specialist expertise within a topic area. The discipline of sport psychology is viewed as a specialist area, both from the perspective of the psychology profession and from within sport and exercise science. Therefore, to become a specialist practitioner of sport and exercise psychology, an individual will usually progress through both a structured sequence of education and training – often within a university undergraduate or postgraduate pathway – and a period of supervised, specialist practical training in order to acquire and apply the required skills and competencies.
