CPD Alignment
Everything you need to log the hours, get it approved, and know what you're signing up for.
If you need something specific for your college or board and it isn't here, ask us and we'll chase it.
Every Educational Escape combines formal workshop teaching with structured reflective practice and peer consultation. Both count, and both are documented.
November 2026 Escapes: 30 hours 20 hours formal workshop training, 10 hours facilitated reflective practice and peer discussion.
March 2027 Escapes: 20 hours Four days of formal workshop training and facilitated reflective practice.
You'll receive documentation of hours and activity types after the Escape, formatted for CPD logging.
Consultants/Doctors
Both Educational Escapes are structured to meet the learning needs of medical practitioners and align with the Medical Board's CPD Standards.
All trainings have been certified by:
- RACP (Approved training)
- MyCPD Home (Certified Learning Provider).
Resilience in Practice Self-Care for Clinicians Escape: Medical Board alignment
Psychologists
Both Educational Escapes are structured to meet the professional learning needs of psychologists and align with the Psychology Board of Australia's (PsyBA) current evidence-based CPD standards.
All trainings are APS-aligned.
Resilience in Practice: Self-Care for Clinicians - PsyBA Professional Competencies for Psychologists alignment
Nursing and Allied Health
All Educational Escapes are designed to meet the needs of Allied Health and Nursing professionals.
You will be able to log all 20 hours of CPD.
Nurses and Occupational Therapists
Whilst there are no relevant competencies, AHPRA requires 20 relevant CPD hours each year. Both Educational Escapes are built to satisfy this criteria Nurses and midwives (NMBA): 20 hours of CPD per registration year, relevant to your context of practice. Trauma Essentials and Resilience in Practice have clinical content on trauma recognition, burnout and vicarious trauma - relevant to all nurses. Occupational therapists (OT Board): 20 hours of CPD per registration year, including a minimum 5 hours of interactive learning. Both Escapes are delivered as small-group, experiential training rather than passive lecture content, which satisfies the interactive-learning requirement directly.
Learning Domains: Self-care is now a professional requirement, not an indulgence. Under the Medical Board of Australia's Good Medical Practice code (Section 11.2), maintaining your own health and wellbeing is a stated professional obligation. The code specifically requires doctors to seek help if experiencing stress, burnout, anxiety or depression, to maintain an appropriate work-life balance, and to recognise the impact of fatigue on their capacity to care for patients safely. This isn't a wellness sentiment. It's regulatory language. Resilience in Practice is built to meet that obligation directly. Learning Domains: The programme satisfies both domains of learning recognised by AMA CPD Home: Domain 1: Educational Activities is met through approximately 20 hours of evidence-based teaching on the neurobiology of burnout, vicarious trauma and moral injury, and psychological flexibility under sustained occupational stress. Domain 2: Reviewing Performance and Measuring Outcomes is met through validated pre- and post-programme measures, including the ProQOL-5 and a recognised burnout inventory, and structured peer skill-practice with facilitator feedback against defined readiness criteria. CAPE ASPECTS The programme addresses two of the Medical Board's four CAPE aspects directly: Professionalism, through content on maintaining fitness to practise, recognising early signs of burnout, and sustaining sound clinical judgement under system pressure. Ethical Practice, through structured work on professional boundaries, self-disclosure, and ethical decision-making in high-demand clinical environments.
Resilience in Practice satisfies the following core competencies under the Psychology Board of Australia's Professional Competencies for Psychologists (effective 1 December 2025): Competency 1 (Applies and builds scientific knowledge): met through evidence-based teaching on burnout, vicarious trauma and moral injury, drawing on current models including the Job Demands-Resources framework and Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources theory. Competency 2 (Practises ethically and professionally): supported through content on professional boundaries and identity under system pressure, though this is a secondary theme rather than a dedicated module. Competency 3 (Professional reflexivity, deliberate practice and self-care): this is the competency the programme is built around. Participants engage in structured reflection on their own culture, values and biases (via the Social GRACES model), critically examine their own professional functioning, and complete a personal self-care plan they take home, directly matching the Board's own language of "monitors and manages self-care to sustain professional functioning and wellbeing."
Speech Therapists and Social Workers
Social workers: If you hold AASW accreditation, both Escapes count toward the Skills and Knowledge category of the AASW's own CPD policy. If you don't hold AASW accreditation, there is no regulatory CPD requirement to meet, only your own professional judgement about what's useful. peech pathologists (SPA Certified Practising status): 20 hours of CPD per membership year, including a minimum 2 hours of cultural learning specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety, and 2 hours of professional support. Trauma Essentials' Social and Emotional Wellbeing content meets the cultural learning category directly; the peer consultation structure in both Escapes meets professional support.
Trauma Essentials - Medical Board CPD Alignment
Trauma Essentials - PsyBA Competency alignment:
Learning Domains: Trauma Essentials satisfies both domains of learning recognised by AMA CPD Home: Domain 1: Educational Activities is met through approximately 20 hours of evidence-based teaching covering current trauma neurobiology (polyvagal theory, window of tolerance, the predictive brain), the Power Threat Meaning Framework, validated screening tools, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social and Emotional Wellbeing framework, and refugee and migrant trauma presentations. Domain 2: Reviewing Performance and Measuring Outcomes is met through a validated pre- and post-programme knowledge assessment, a Quality Improvement Plan each participant builds and takes back into their own service, and structured evaluation including daily pulse-checks and a three-month follow-up survey on practice change. CAPE ASPECTS Trauma Essentials addresses all four of the Medical Board's CAPE aspects: Professionalism, through content on recognising vicarious trauma and burnout in oneself, and building a documented self-care plan as a course requirement. Ethical Practice, through the Power Threat Meaning Framework as an alternative to pathologising labels, and explicit teaching on referral boundaries and scope of practice. Culturally Safe Practice, through the SEWB framework taught throughout rather than as a module, culturally validated screening tools, and a learning outcome specifically requiring participants to create a culturally safe clinical environment. Addressing Health Inequities, through dedicated content on the disproportionate trauma burden carried by First Nations, refugee and migrant patients, and the documented ways standard trauma-informed practice can miss or misname their presentations. SELF-CARE: A professional requirement; not an indulgence. Under the Medical Board of Australia's Good Medical Practice code (Section 11.2), maintaining your own health and wellbeing is a stated professional obligation, including seeking help for stress, burnout, anxiety or depression, and recognising the impact of fatigue on your capacity to care for patients safely. Trauma Essentials treats this as a required outcome, not an aside: participants leave with a documented personal self-care plan, built specifically around the vicarious trauma risk of trauma-exposed clinical work.
Competency 1 (Applies and builds scientific knowledge): met through a dedicated evidence review session covering current trauma neurobiology and treatment guidelines, and the Power Threat Meaning Framework as an alternative to pathologising diagnostic labels. Competency 3 (Professional reflexivity, deliberate practice and self-care): met through structured reflection on how participants have previously labelled and misread traumatised patients, and a required personal self-care plan addressing vicarious trauma risk. Competency 4 (Conducts psychological assessments): met through direct training in validated trauma screening tools, including the PC-PTSD-5, PCL-5, ACE and K10, and awareness of culturally validated alternatives for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients. Competency 6 (Communicates and relates to others effectively): met through dedicated modules on trauma-informed language, referral letter writing, and communicating with patients and receiving clinicians. Competency 7 (Health equity and human rights, diverse groups): met through dedicated content on refugee and migrant trauma presentations, prevalence and access barriers. Competency 8 (Health equity and human rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples): met through the Social and Emotional Wellbeing framework taught throughout the programme rather than as a module, and a specific learning outcome requiring participants to create a culturally safe clinical environment.
FAQs
Got a burning question about our Educational Escapes? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions section below.
APS Approval
Is Starling HC "APS Approved?"
The Australian Psychological Society (APS) is a membership body - NOT a regulator. It doesn't approve, accredit or license training providers.
The actual regulator is the Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA), which sits under AHPRA, and has issued its own regulatory Code of Conduct. What this means practically: Psychologists don't need our training pre-approved by anyone. CPD is self-directed. Each psychologist logs their own 30 hours a year (at least 10 of them peer consultation) against their own learning plan and decides for themselves whether an activity is relevant to their practice. Attending Resilience in Practice or Trauma Essentials counts as CPD because the psychologist attending it says so, backed by our documentation of hours and content, not because Starling HC or the APS has stamped it. So why aren't we "APS accredited?" Because nobody accredits individual CPD activities for psychologists - not even the APS.
CPD aligned
Do the escapes count as CPD?
Yes. Both Escapes are built around structured learning outcomes and documented hours, and are approved or aligned across multiple accrediting bodies for doctors, psychologists, nurses, occupational therapists, speech pathologists and social workers.
Trauma therapy
Is Trauma Essentials the same as trauma therapy training?
No. Trauma Essentials is Level 1 of a three-level series and teaches recognition, referral and safe response, not treatment. It's designed for any health professional who meets trauma in their work, not only mental health clinicians. Treatment-level training sits at Levels 2 and 3.
Prior Training
Do I need prior trauma training for Trauma Essentials?
For me?
No. Trauma Essentials assumes no formal trauma training. We do expect that experienced clinicians will already have a working sense of how trauma turns up in their practice, because you can't work in health without meeting it.
Who is each escape for?
Both are designed for doctors, psychologists, nurses, dentists, social workers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists and allied health clinicians working in high-demand roles. The cohort is deliberately mixed, because most of the useful conversations happen across professions rather than within them.
Cancellations
What's the Cancellation policy?
Full terms are on our Terms and Conditions page. In short: your deposit secures your place and isn't refundable, and accommodation and balance payments follow a sliding refund scale the closer you get to your Escape.
Group size
How big is the group?
No more than 16 participants - kept small on purpose. Within that group, you'll move through small breakout groups and pairs across the program, so the group never feels large even at capacity.
Wellness?
Is this a wellness retreat?
No. Educational Escapes are structured, evidence-based clinical training programs for health professionals.
Each includes formal teaching sessions aligned to CPD requirements, followed by curated cultural and restorative experiences. There's yoga, walks in the bush, and time to think. There's also 20-30 hours of workshop content and a knowledge assessment.
Choices
What's the difference between Resilience in Practice and Trauma Essentials?
Resilience in Practice focuses on clinician wellbeing, burnout and sustainable practice, built from ACT and Compassion-Focused Therapy frameworks. Trauma Essentials focuses on recognising and responding to trauma in patients, built from current trauma neurobiology and the Power Threat Meaning Framework. They can be attended in either order and aren't sequential levels of the same program.
Which one?
Do I need to choose between the November and March dates, or can I do both?
Each Escape runs independently, so you can attend Resilience in Practice, Trauma Essentials, or both, in either November or March.
Funding
I need my employer to fund this. What do I give them?
There's an employer brochure for each Escape with learning outcomes, dates, hours and facilitator qualifications, written for someone approving a budget rather than someone attending. Download it from the relevant Escape page, or ask and we'll email it.
Sober?
I don't drink - will half the program be wasted on me?
No. The food and the settings carry it; the wine is optional and always has been. Tell us when you book and every venue and tasting will have something for you that isn't an afterthought.
Accessibility
What about dietaries or accessibility?
Dietary requirements are accommodated as standard. Our hospitality host is chef-trained and works directly with venues to make sure this isn't an afterthought.
Accessibility needs, including mobility considerations can be accommodated. As can neurodivergent learning styles: the program's structure, small groups, movement etc. already suits a range of learning needs rather than requiring separate adaptation. Tell us about any dietary, accessibility or learning needs when you book, and we'll work it through with you in advance.