Insights

June 2026

As outlined in the Health Professions Act (HPA), Regulatory Health Colleges are required to establish and maintain a Continuing Competence Program (CCP) in which regulated members must participate. The public benefits from the CCP due to a higher assurance of quality care, while ACSLPA’s regulated members benefit from support that enables them to provide quality care to their clients.

The CCP is designed to engage regulated members in maintaining and enhancing their competence, assess regulated members’ engagement in activities that maintain or enhance their competence, and support regulated members whose competence to practice may be at risk.

As a reminder, competence is defined in the HPA as “the combined knowledge, skills, attitudes, and judgment required to provide professional services”. ACSLPA’s CCP includes activities that have been shown in the literature to maintain and enhance competence, including completing continuing education, connecting with peers and colleagues for feedback and practice advice, and identifying both the risks to one’s competence, and supports that can be implemented to mitigate those risks.

Approximately 20% of all CCP submissions are audited every year, ensuring that all practicing regulated members will be audited over a 5-year period. Anyone newly registered with ACSLPA who has completed their first CCP submission is included in the audit. The rationale for this is to provide new regulated members with support, ensuring they start off on the right track with their CCP activities and submissions.

Comparison of 2025 and 2026 CCP Audit Information

In 2026, the total number of submissions referred to the interview stage of the program remained the same as in 2025, at just 11%. An area to highlight is the significant reduction in audiology submission referred to the interview stage and is similar in percentage to the SLP referral rate.

The primary reason submissions did not meet the requirements of the audit were similar to previous years; namely, that regulated members did not directly answer the question of how their competence was impacted by completion of the required activities. While auditors can sometimes “read between the lines” and make assumptions about how one’s competence was impacted, having a conversation as part of the interview process was helpful in teasing out what specific learning regulated members achieved through both the continuing education activities and peer dialogue.

Please be as specific as you can be when documenting competence activities and how they have impacted your competence. Ask yourself the question “how did this activity impact my competence and what I do in my practice?” and then literally write down your response!

You can enter the competence system at any time during the year to record your competence activities, and you can edit as many times as you want prior to submitting your completed program.

Many regulated members were also provided feedback in their audit report with suggestions “for future submissions”. A common reminder was to spell out all acronyms the first time they are used in a submission. While auditors are all SLPs and audiologists, they don’t always work in the same specific area as you, and they may not be familiar with all the acronyms (and we all know there are a lot of different acronyms in SLP and audiology practice).

Another common reminder was to make sure to provide complete references in your continuing education report.

Consistent with previous years, following the interviews, no regulated members were referred to the record review stage of the program.

ACSLPA is committed to providing an accessible competence program for our regulated members. Individuals with a diagnosis of a disability, or those experiencing extenuating circumstances (e.g., serious illness of self or immediate family member, illness or death of family member, or sudden and unexpected changes to one’s personal circumstance), may request accommodation with respect to completion of any part of the CCP. Accommodations may include exemption from the program for a given year, an extension of the deadline to complete one’s CCP, or a change in the manner by which the CCP is completed. Regulated members are asked to contact the College as soon as they are aware that an accommodation for a CCP process is required. Accommodation requests are processed within 5 business days.

If you found this article interesting, all of our Insights publications can be accessed here. If you have questions about these topics, the legislation behind them, or the way ACSLPA functions please email feedback@acslpa.ca or call 780-944-1609 ext. 101.

If there is a conflict or discrepancy with the information or advice set out on this webpage and the information contained in a more official ACSLPA document, then the information contained in the more official ACSLPA document applies and not the information or advice set out here. For the purposes of this disclaimer, ACSLPA’s more official documents include the governing legislation (including the Health Professions Act and the Speech-Language Pathologist and Audiologist Profession Regulation) as well as ACSLPA’s Bylaws, policies, Standards of Practice, Code of Ethics, manuals and/or any other official document approved by Council, a statutory committee or a college official. Persons interacting with ACSLPA are responsible for reviewing and familiarizing themselves with the relevant information contained in ACSLPA’s official documents.