POLICE CHECK FAQS

The National Police Check is a requirement for all courses with a placement component. Please refer to the specific course page or course guide to check whether placement is essential for the course you are applying for.

The counselling, criminology, psychology and social work professions involve people entering trusting relationships with other people. These disciplines have an ethical responsibility to both the student and the profession that it screens students for disclosable outcomes prior to progressing in their training course. Most of our courses have a police check as a course progression requirement as part of their accreditation.
All counselling, criminology, psychology and social work students are required to provide a current police check for placement. Most placement agencies accept the police check submitted by students on enrolment with ACAP. Some agencies will require you to gain a new police check as a condition of commencing placement. You MUST disclose any issues that are identified on your police check to your Agency Supervisor before your placement will be approved by ACAP.

You must advise ACAP if there has been a change to your record and update it before registering for a placement.

Police checks are required to be submitted prior to the enrolment into the second unit of study. An updated version may also be requested if necessary.

Once enrolled, students will be advised about the police check during the Placement Information Session, and communication is sent from the SONIA Placement Management System.

If the Date of Issue on your Police Check is less than 12 months old, you can submit that to us.

The National Police Check is the requirement specified by the course accreditation. As it is a specific requirement, we unfortunately cannot accept anything other than a National Police Check.

You can apply for a National Police Check either online at National Crime Check or your State Police Service.
If you use the National Crime Check service, please tick “unsupervised access” .
Note: If you use any other private provider, you must ensure they are accredited by ACIC otherwise we are unable to accept the check.

Click on your state or territory of residence and that will take you to the correct page to then do your police check. Each state has a slightly different process from there. If you have further questions
about that process, you will need to contact the phone number or email address specified for your state or territory on the respective page.
Note: Only students who reside in the ACT are able to get a police check from the Australian Federal Police.

First, please ensure that you have followed the link provided to obtain your police check. Second, once you click on your appropriate place of residence, and have started the application, where it asks your purpose for getting a police check, you should select ‘Other’ as a category for purpose, and specify it as ‘counselling, criminology, psychology or social work course and placement requirement’.

We need the actual certificate scanned and sent to [email protected] in order to verify that you may proceed with your course. The scanned copy you send does not need to be certified, but it does need to be the certificate (not just a receipt, summary or a verification that you’ve completed the application).
As soon as we process the certificate you send through, your enrolment will be unlocked, and we will send you an email to let you know that your police check was received and that you can enrol. Please be sure to scan and send, as opposed to photographing and sending, as photos are not good enough quality to keep on file.

Most libraries have a scanner that you can use for free or for a small fee. Otherwise you can also bring it to the Student Admin desk at your campus and they will either photocopy or scan and email it to [email protected].
If you bring your certificate to the Admin desk, please provide your Student ID so that we can be sure to process it for you. If you don’t provide this and we can’t find the name which is on the certificate in our system, your Police Check will not be processed.

If you have disclosable outcomes on the police check, it does not automatically exclude you from the course, but we are obliged to review the details and send it to the Dean for approval.

Yes. Private agencies are often much faster, and costs can vary widely with some agencies charging less and some charging more than the state police services. It is a requirement that the police check is government accredited. Look at their website to ensure it says that they are accredited by The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC).
If you are unsure, you will have to contact the company that you are using to make sure it is.

Yes, you can use a digital copy of your police check if it is from the same company from which you will be receiving your hard copy.
Please send the digital copy to [email protected] for processing.

You do not need one to re-enrol, however, you will need one prior to placement.