Joining the ABvC
If you are living in the Netherlands but you are not a native Dutch citizen which makes it obvious that you had your professional training abroad, we need to know how to compare your training programs to the ones that we accept as proper training for registration.
To become a member, you need to have finished a training program in the psychological field at a hbo level or higher (hbo stands for ‘hoger beroepsonderwijs’, or higher education).
In order to know whether the education programs you finished are eligible for registration with the ABvC as a registered counsellor, you have to send a copy of your relevant diplomas to the Nuffic. This is the authority in The Netherlands that compares foreign education programs with possible Dutch equivalents.
You can find more information about the procedure to have your diplomas checked by Nuffic here: https://www.nuffic.nl/en/subjects/diploma/studying-netherlands-foreign-diploma
After you have followed the procedure you will receive a report back from Nuffic. You have to send a digital copy of this report to us via e-mail address tra@abvc.nl.
Please allow up to 4 weeks for our response.
Understanding Dutch
Please take into consideration that after you’ve registered with us, you must follow among other things additional training, supervision and intervision on a regular basis. All this is provided in the Dutch language only. For a proper understanding, it is important that your Dutch language skills are at a more than basic level.
For more information about the different levels of speaking and understanding the Dutch language, have a look at the website of the ERK (Europees Referentiekader Talen). You can also download an extensive overview of the different ERK language levels and what they encompass by clicking the button on the right side of this page.
For registration as a registered counsellor with the ABvC, ERK level B2 is obligated.
If you have further questions please send an e-mail to the secretariat via info@abvc.nl.