The AAOT Credential is designed as a substantial postgraduate-level professional learning program rather than a short course. Although the credential is completed at your own pace, most Occupational Therapists undertaking it alongside employment, family, professional and other responsibilities should expect to take approximately 18–24 months to complete.

The suggested timeline below is a guide rather than a deadline. Different learners will bring very different professional, academic and animal-related experience to the credential, and this will affect how long particular units take.

Applicants should not attempt to compress the credential simply by moving through portal pages as quickly as possible. AAOT involves developing professional reasoning, applying learning to practice, completing practical activities, engaging with other disciplines, reflecting on complex cases and revisiting earlier thinking as your knowledge develops.

Time spent exploring an issue, seeking supervision, discussing a difficult case, finding additional evidence or improving something in your own practice is part of the learning process.

The aim is therefore not to complete AAOT as quickly as possible. The aim is to reach the end of the credential able to demonstrate the knowledge, professional reasoning and applied competence expected of an Assistance Animal Occupational Therapist.

The AAOT Curriculum

Following the Introduction and Foundation Learning, the core AAOT curriculum consists of ten units.

The units vary considerably in size, complexity and purpose. You should therefore not expect every unit to take the same amount of time.

Some of the early units are primarily concerned with ensuring that the foundations of your professional practice are safe and appropriate for assistance-animal work. Later units become considerably more detailed and reflective of the specialist work undertaken in day-to-day AAOT practice.

In addition, the Capstone Project and Professional Reflection are required.

What You Will Find in Each Unit

Each AAOT unit contains more than theory content. Depending on the subject, you may encounter a combination of:

• core AAOT learning material;
• a unit workbook containing reflective, applied and practice-based activities;
• case studies and professional reasoning exercises;
• suggested readings, websites, videos and other external resources;
• policies, procedures and guidance documents;
• templates, forms, checklists and examples;
• practical activities and opportunities to build evidence of competence; and
• material that may contribute to your Reflective Portfolio, integrated case work or later Capstone activities.

The additional resources provided by WAFA are there to support your learning rather than prescribe every source you must use.

It is up to you how extensively you use them. You may work through all of the suggested resources, select those that are particularly relevant to your knowledge and practice, or locate appropriate professional, academic, government, industry or other credible resources yourself.

You may already have useful resources through your workplace, professional memberships, university, previous study or professional networks.

Part of postgraduate learning is developing the ability to identify, critically evaluate and use appropriate sources independently. You are therefore encouraged to explore beyond the resources WAFA provides where doing so supports your learning.

The important outcome is not whether you have opened every link or read every optional resource. It is whether you can demonstrate the knowledge, professional reasoning and applied competence expected of an AAOT.

Units 1–3: Building Your Practice Foundations

The first three core units are intentionally practical:

Unit 1 — Work Health and Safety (WHS) in the Assistance Animal Industry

Unit 2 — Environmental Sustainability in the Assistance Animal Industry

Unit 3 — Infection Prevention, Biosecurity and One Health in the Assistance Animal Industry

By the end of these three units, you should have developed a complete set of relevant policies and procedures for your own AAOT practice, or reviewed and updated the policies and procedures you already have to ensure they appropriately address assistance-animal practice.

You are not expected to discard good systems simply because you have commenced the AAOT Credential.

If you already operate an established OT practice with comprehensive WHS, environmental, infection-control and related policies, much of your work may involve reviewing those documents through an assistance-animal lens and making whatever additions or amendments are required.

For example, an existing infection-prevention policy may already be comprehensive for human healthcare practice but require additional consideration of animal contact, zoonotic disease, equipment shared with or used by animals, cleaning following animal accidents, waste management, environmental contamination or other assistance-animal-specific circumstances.

Someone establishing a new practice, however, may need to develop policies and procedures largely from the beginning.

The time required to complete Units 1–3 will therefore vary considerably.

An OT with established policies, templates, risk-management systems and organisational infrastructure may progress relatively quickly. An OT establishing an independent practice or developing these systems for the first time may appropriately spend considerably longer.

Your exact practice circumstances will also influence what you need. A sole practitioner working primarily in clients’ homes will not necessarily require identical systems to a multidisciplinary clinic where multiple assistance animals may regularly enter the premises.

The goal is not to produce identical documents.

The goal is to finish these units with policies and procedures that are appropriate, usable and sufficiently comprehensive for your actual or intended AAOT practice.

Units 4–10: Developing Specialist AAOT Practice

The later units become substantially more detailed and increasingly reflective of day-to-day Assistance Animal Occupational Therapy practice.

They move beyond establishing general practice infrastructure and progressively explore animal behaviour and communication, assistance-animal law and ethics, animal welfare and learning, veterinary and health considerations, animal selection and training, Occupational Therapy assessment and the broader professional practice of an AAOT.

These units contain substantially more detailed material, case-based professional reasoning, reflection and application.

In particular, Units 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10 are large and comprehensive units. They should be given the time necessary to properly engage with the material rather than being rushed simply to maintain a suggested timetable.

If a concept challenges your existing practice, follow it further.

If a case makes you uncertain, discuss it.

If you discover that you need greater knowledge in an area, undertake further reading.

If a workbook question changes how you understand something you encountered earlier, go back and reconsider your previous response.

If you need professional consultation, interdisciplinary input or supervision before you can confidently work through an issue, seek it.

That process is part of completing the credential, rather than evidence that you are falling behind.

Your Existing Experience Will Affect Your Timeline

The suggested 18–24 month timeframe is an indicative learning journey rather than a formula.

Two experienced Occupational Therapists commencing AAOT at the same time may appropriately progress at very different rates.

One practitioner may already have comprehensive practice policies, substantial animal-training experience, established professional networks and extensive experience with the NDIS. Another may be encountering some of these areas for the first time.

Neither learner should artificially slow down material they already understand, and neither should rush unfamiliar material simply to remain on an arbitrary timetable.

Similarly, substantial previous experience should not lead you to assume that a unit has nothing new to offer. Use the workbook, cases and AAOT-specific material to consider whether your existing knowledge transfers appropriately to this specialised area of practice.

Suggested Learning Journey

For OTs balancing the credential with a substantial professional or personal workload, a 24-month pathway may be more comfortable:

Again, this is not a required schedule.

The first three units may take less time where you already have appropriate systems that require only AAOT-specific review and customisation, or considerably longer where you are developing them from the ground up.

The larger later units should be given the time necessary for genuine engagement, reflection and application.

Learning Happens Across the Whole Credential

Not everything in AAOT should be approached sequentially.

While progressing through the units, you should also be gradually:

• developing your Reflective Portfolio;
• undertaking practical and applied activities;
• participating in the AAOT Community of Practice;
• communicating and sharing professional perspectives with other AAOT learners;
• undertaking relevant professional conversations and interdisciplinary learning;
• identifying gaps in your own knowledge;
• undertaking additional reading and learning where appropriate;
• completing required external learning;
• gathering appropriate evidence of learning and practice;
• developing and refining ideas for your Capstone Project;
• discussing difficult cases and professional questions through supervision or with your trainer; and
• returning to earlier reflections as your professional reasoning develops.

In particular, do not leave your Capstone, portfolio, practical work or professional engagement until the final months. These are developmental components of the credential and should grow alongside your theoretical and applied learning.

A question you encounter in Unit 2 may eventually influence your Capstone. A difficult case in Unit 5 may cause you to revisit something you wrote during Foundation Learning. Experience gained while working through Unit 8 may change how you understand an assessment issue when you reach Unit 9.

That development is intentional.

Do Not Work Through AAOT in Isolation

AAOT is deliberately designed to involve professional discussion, reflection and interdisciplinary engagement.

You are encouraged to participate in the Community of Practice, communicate with other learners, discuss ideas with relevant professionals and contact WAFA when you are uncertain.

You will be allocated a point-of-contact trainer for the credential. Your trainer will check their designated credential emails at least every 48 hours, although responses may sometimes take longer where an enquiry requires consultation, research or further investigation.

WAFA will also be active through the Community of Practice and other appropriate communication channels. As a developing organisation with limited staff and a substantial volume of enquiries, there may occasionally be delays. Now that the credential infrastructure is established, we expect to be increasingly available to support learners throughout their journey.

Postgraduate professional learning is not about demonstrating that you can work everything out alone.

Knowing when to question, discuss, consult, seek supervision, refer to another profession or reconsider your original position is itself part of competent AAOT practice.

Your Timeline Is a Guide, Not a Race

Your progression through AAOT will be individual.

If you take 18 months, that is appropriate.

If you take 24 months, that is appropriate.

If you need longer because of employment, disability, illness, caring responsibilities, significant life circumstances or because you require additional time to consolidate your learning, that can also be appropriate.

Where you need to pause or substantially slow your studies, communicate with WAFA so that we understand your circumstances.

What matters is reasonable ongoing engagement and progress, rather than adherence to an arbitrary monthly schedule.

Likewise, completing portal material quickly does not necessarily demonstrate competence. The measure of progress is not how quickly you move through the course.

It is what you understand, what you can apply, what you develop, how your professional reasoning changes, and what you can ultimately demonstrate in practice.