Internship Activities

This seminar addresses ethical issues, multicultural and diversity issues, and issues of professional development and entry into the field of professional psychology. Presentations by staff members, community professionals, and interns cover a wide range of topics based on the intern group’s needs and special topics that are of interest to them.

This topical seminar series addresses issues related to diversity, equity, and social justice. Interns are asked to reflect on various topics as they relate to themselves, their self-growth, development as clinicians and mental health workers. The format will involve readings, videos, presentations, and discussions. Some level of vulnerability and personal exploration is expected. Interns will integrate concepts into various areas of work during their internship year, including clinical work, outreach, and a final presentation on working across differences.

Provides training and preparation for supervision of counseling and psychology practicum students, and trainees at CPS under supervision of licensed staff.

Provides didactic training on group theory, intervention, and facilitation as well as group supervision with the Group Coordinator. Interns will present a case presentation of their group/s therapy experience, consult with peers and the Group Coordinator, and enhance their understanding of group processes in process, support, and skills-based group therapies.

This seminar will provide an overview of theory, models, and techniques of consultation and outreach, including: how to design programming, conduct a needs assessment, etc. Intern activities in the areas of consultation and outreach are supervised at this time and the amount of time in supervision decreases over the year as interns operate more autonomously.

Interns join with the clinical staff for a one-hour weekly clinical consultation meetings. This meeting provides an opportunity to distribute new clients as well as receive support, feedback, and suggestions for particularly interesting and challenging clients, or those where some factor(s) present potential ethical conflicts, etc. This is also a forum to discuss emerging critical clinical issues from the university community: recent university crises, or emerging situations likely to lead to crisis, such as severe conflict in a program, a student death, an attempted suicide, etc. This meeting is used, at times, for professional development topics of interest to the staff. The meetings are informal in format, and trainees as well as staff are invited to bring in relevant information, viewpoints, or case material.

Intern supervision is a priority of the program and is geared to the intern’s level of professional development. Each intern receives a minimum of two hours of individual supervision weekly. All primary supervisors are licensed psychologists. Priority will be given to interns’ preferences when deciding supervisory matches as much as possible given staffing and availability, including the option to be supervised by a licensed psychologist who is at least 3 years post-licensure. Interns will discuss supervision styles and training goals with potential supervisors and inform the TD of their preferences for supervisor given the fit of supervisory styles with the intern’s training goals.

Additionally, as a multidisciplinary training site, interns also have the opportunity to receive supervision and mentorship from other licensed professionals in areas such as group work, Area of Focus, consultation, and outreach. Interns will be evaluated by each of their clinical supervisors as well as receive evaluative feedback in each of the supervision/seminar areas. Each intern also has a broader evaluation given twice yearly, written by his or her primary supervisor. This evaluation will include feedback from all staff members who had worked with the intern during that evaluation period and will be shared with the intern’s home department (see Six Month Intern Performance Evaluation). Evaluation will be discussed in more detail in the section on evaluation.

Note: CPS does not complete additional evaluation forms from academic departments. If this is a requirement of your department, please check with your Director of Clinical Training about this policy and whether CPS would meet your academic department’s needs before applying.

While most CPS clinicians serve as generalists, staff have expertise in a number of different areas - whether clinically (i.e., eating disorders, substance abuse), in other service areas (i.e., diversity training, group coordination, outreach), or administratively (i.e., training, clinic management) for which they offer specific mentorship. Interns will choose one ‘major’ rotation for an area of focus for the duration of internship. It is expected that interns will integrate their area of emphasis into their requirements so that their hours stay within reasonable limits. The Area of Focus mentor and intern will, together with the Training Director, develop a contract to clarify what are the goals of the area of emphasis experience and expectations for both the mentor and intern. Interns should contract for their time and activity commitment with their area of emphasis mentor prior to the start of fall semester.

All interns and the full staff meet together once a week, for one hour to discuss emerging issues on campus, changes in our policies and procedures, concerns, or information important to all staff. Interns as well as full staff are invited to bring in topics and concerns to be discussed.

Interns are required, and staff and trainees are strongly encouraged to participate monthly in the diversity dialogues. Topics are collaboratively identified and address a wide variety of diversity issues based on the interests and needs of current staff, interns, and trainees. The goals are to promote ongoing personal reflection on diversity issues to increase awareness and knowledge about these issues and to create a safe environment to have genuine discussion about these issues. The format is varied and may include reading and discussing articles, watching videos, having panel presentations from campus or community members, or staff presentations.

The Training Director meets with the interns individually once per month and as a group once per month. This serves as an opportunity to answer administrative questions, discuss any business items, air problems, process, and relax together.

As part of their area of emphasis experiences and interests, interns may become involved in committee work either in CPS to further our own goals, for the Division of Student Affairs, or for the Ohio University campus at large. CPS committees include Social Media and Outreach Committee, Clinical Services Committee, and Training Committee.

Interns are allowed to use professional development time to attend conferences, go on job interviews, attend home program meetings for dissertation and graduation, etc. All professional development time must be submitted in writing and approved by the Training Director.

Interns are expected to have 25% of their time (500 hours) in the provision of direct clinical service. In order to achieve this goal, interns must maintain between 15–23 clinical hours per week. Direct clinical service includes individual, couples, and group therapy, and in-person drop-in/crisis coverage. Interns are required to provide approximately 12-14 hours in direct clinical services to individuals and couples, as well as conduct group therapy sessions (1.5-3 hours) throughout the year. Interns also provide emergency walk-in services in rotation with the rest of the professional staff. Clients at CPS represent a wide range of backgrounds and identities, presenting concerns, and levels of clinical complexity. Each intern will be able to develop both specific clinical interests and broad generalist skills.

Interns engage in regular outreach and consultation programming for CPS. Over the course of the year, each intern must provide a minimum of five programs per semester for the fall and spring semesters for a total of at least 10 outreach programs for the year. A maximum of one outreach program may be a “tabling” event per semester. Interns will meet with the Outreach Coordinator during the regularly scheduled Outreach Seminar to develop outreach programs, identify opportunities to engage in programming, and receive supervision of their programming.

Interns will be required to provide direct supervision to one clinical psychology or counseling trainee/practicum student during fall and spring semesters. These trainees/practicum students see between 7-9 clients and their supervision is divided between two supervisors, one of whom will be an intern. Part of the supervision will involve reviewing tapes and notes of the supervisee. Training and supervision of supervision will be provided throughout the year in the form of a 2-hour supervision of supervision meeting during fall and spring semesters.