Doctoral Internship in Professional Health Service Psychology

Doctoral Internship in Professional Health Service Psychology

APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation 750 First St. NE Washington, DC 20002-4242 Phone: 202-336-5979 APA Office of Accreditation

Updated: September 2019

About the University at Buffalo

The University and Its Environment

Located on two spacious, attractive campuses, the University at Buffalo is the largest, most comprehensive member of the State University of New York system. It boasts an ethnically and culturally rich and diverse student body of approximately 27,000 students, 19 percent of whom are minority students and 7 percent of whom are international students. The distinguished faculty includes nationally and internationally recognized figures in all major disciplines. In addition, the presence of three major coordinating divisions, Undergraduate Education, Graduate and Professional Education, and the Division of Continuing Education, allows for a variety and scope of academic programs that is unsurpassed. The quality and extensiveness of the facilities at both on- and off-campus sites greatly enhance the reputation of the University. As the second largest city in New York State, Buffalo is proud to be the home of this prestigious institution. Indeed, the University represents a major cultural center for all of Western New York. Films, concerts, art exhibits, and lectures by a wide variety of prominent people are available on campus throughout the year.

Buffalo, New York? Most people think of snow piled as high as people's roof tops when they think of Buffalo, NY (and in reality, most winters do not come close to what has been televised in the news every several years). Buffalo is much more than snow. There has been new energy and investment in building up and revitalizing this "City of Good Neighbors" and surrounding regions.

Are you right for Buffalo? Are You Right For Buffalo You Tube Video

Travel Guide: Buffalo-Niagara, New York: Buffalo Travel You Tube Video

Why UBCS? From an Intern's Perspective. (Created by one of our psychology interns)

Clinic Related Perks

Ability to supervise a doctoral student both semesters Ability to supervise in many contexts (e.g., formally, through consultation, outreach) Paid formal training (e.g., DBT, QPR) Committee involvement Good exposure to diverse clients and especially international students Staff engage in peer supervision (exemplifies a training and developmental model)

Extra Perks

Cost of living Large windows in intern offices

 Parking is free and close Insurance

o Free life, vision, and dental insurance (for you, spouse and dependents) o Option of NYS insurance

To describe the feel of the center:

Many people have lunch with each other Birthday club (choice to be randomly assigned staff/psych intern and be responsible for reminding staff about that individual's birthday as well as bringing in a dessert treat on or around the individual's birthday. Psych interns are celebrated but do not have to organize anything) Sunshine club Staff seems to have good work-life balance

Why Buffalo?

Sites and Attractions

Albright-Knox Art Gallery Bills (NFL) Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park Buffalo Museum of Science Buffalo Zoo Canada Canalside Casino Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino Holiday valley Kleinhan's Museum Hall Niagara Falls and hiking options (e.g., Devil's hole) Riverworks Sabres Hockey (NHL) Seneca Niagara Resort and Casino

Festivals

Allenton Art Festival Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts Erie County Fair Italian Heritage Festival Juneteenth Festival National Buffalo Wing Festival Niagara County Peach Festival Tonawanda Canal Fest

Food

Buffalo food featured on Food Network

Nightlife

Live music Bars and lounges Nightclubs

Parks

Buffalo Olmstead Parks Conservancy Amherst State Park Buffalo Harbor State Park Bird Island Pier Ellicott Creek Park Beaver Island State Park

COUNSELING SERVICES: An Overview

Counseling Services is a department of Student Life. Our office provides a full range of services and programs which promotes the personal development and psychological well-being of students and the attainment of personal and educational goals. The staff is strongly committed to programming related to student diversity and to an overall university environment where individual and cultural differences are celebrated. We also recognize the interconnectedness of physical, emotional, and psychological health, and seek to provide services consistent with this awareness. Among the services offered are individual, couples, and group treatments, crisis intervention, consultation, outreach programming, career counseling, substance abuse assessment, psychological evaluation, and referral. Counseling Services works with students presenting with a full spectrum of concerns, from developmental issues to severe psychopathology. Counseling Services also serves students with diverse backgrounds and identities. The diversity in the clients of the center are comparable or surpass the diversity represented at UB (e.g., 17% international students, 45% identifying as an ethnic minority, 23% identifying a non-traditional sexual orientation or gender identity, and 16% identifying as first generation college students).

Counseling Services has a staff of 12 full-time licensed or license-eligible psychologists, 4 fulltime licensed social workers, 2 full-time licensed mental health counselors, and a full-time licensed psychiatric nurse practitioner. In addition to the three full-time doctoral psychology interns, there are several part-time trainees. These include social work interns from the University at Buffalo graduate Social Work program, graduate assistants, advanced and first year

practicum students from the University at Buffalo Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology graduate programs, and externs from graduate programs in counseling or clinical psychology, or mental health counseling from other area colleges/universities.

Setting and Facilities Counseling Services primary offices are located on the North (Amherst) Campus of the University at Buffalo, in a residence hall complex. The facilities include individual offices for interns, with a large window to let some light in. Each office is also equipped with networked computer equipment, VOIP phones, and webcams for video/audio recording.

Group therapy sessions, seminars, and meetings occur in the group room, which is equipped with networked computer, webcam for recording, and a Smartboard. There is a satellite Counseling Services office located on the South campus, in the Student Health Services building. As Counseling Services as grown, there are as many staff members primarily housed in this location as in the original North campus location at this point. Doctoral Psychology Interns' offices are located in the original North Campus office, where the center Director, and the Training Director are also primarily housed. To try to maintain a sense of overall cohesiveness among staff and trainees housed in both locations, staff and trainees often rotate 1-2 days whole or half-days at their non-primary location; so psychology interns may spend a day or two at the South Campus location during the week, which allows them greater access to the whole staff and potential supervisors. We also have an embedded counselor who

spend 3 days providing services within the Athletics Department, and an embedded counselor who spends 2 days providing services at the UB Medical campus in the city of Buffalo.

Counseling Services has a strong commitment to maintaining close working relationships with other departments of Student Affairs, including Student Health Services, Wellness Education Services, Disability Services, Career Planning and Placement and the Office of Student Life. We also collaborate with other university entities, including the Educational Opportunity Program, the Athletics Department, Office of International Student Services, School of Engineering, and the Medical School, to name a few.

INTERNSHIP: Philosophy & Training Model

The full-time internship offered by the Counseling Services at the State University of New York at Buffalo is fully accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation, 750 First St. NE Washington, DC 20002-4242, Ph 202336-5979, APA Office of Accreditation ).

The internship offered by the University at Buffalo Counseling Services (UBCS) is designed to provide a broad-based professional training experience in the range of activities carried out by psychologists in a service-oriented university counseling center. We seek to facilitate growth and development in the profession-wide competencies of health services psychology (different from health psychology), as laid out in the Standards of Accreditation (SoA) (APA 2015): APA Standards of Accreditation.

The goal of internship is to facilitate the development of a well-rounded generalist in the profession of health service psychology. We utilize a practitioner-scholar model combined with an emphasis on experiential learning. Supervisors provide mentoring based on each intern's needs and wants. We recognize that providing developmentally appropriate training and opportunities that take into account individual needs will optimize the internship experience. We also recognize the profound impact of individual and cultural difference in all that we do as psychologists and as human beings. Hence, we have a commitment to diversity and multicultural awareness in all aspects of our training program.

Generalist Perspective

Our mission is to train interns as skilled generalists equipped to work in a variety of postinternship employment settings. To this end, we provide a range of didactic and experiential training activities that psychologists in a large university counseling center setting or other comparable professional settings are likely to encounter..

Practitioner-Scholar

Our staff recognizes the importance of clinical practice that is informed by scholarly inquiry, and espouses a practitioner-scholar model in our professional work, including training and service

delivery. Theoretical and research literature is integrated with experiential components of training through provision and discussion of professional literature in seminars and supervision. There is recognition of the applicability of scientific method in clinical thinking, including critical evaluation, awareness of biases, integration of available information toward hypothesis formation (i.e. case conceptualization), and the process of hypothesis testing (e.g. implementing interventions, assessing their impact, revising hypotheses). UBCS staff serves as practitionerscholar role models for our trainees, and center activities illustrate the integration of science and practice. Administrative and policy decisions at our center are informed by scholarly review of both empirical and theoretical literature, as well as our center's ongoing examination of service utilization, client demographics, and client satisfaction. Results of ongoing satisfaction surveys may also inform areas in need of attention for clinical staff and trainees.

Mentorship and Experiential Learning

As part of the foundation of our training philosophy, mentorship is evidenced by a genuine commitment to intensive supervision and to the furthering of the intern's personal and professional growth. Interns are respectfully regarded as developing professionals and are encouraged to work closely with UBCS staff members, who provide mentoring and serve as professional role models for our trainees. Overall, we seek to create an atmosphere of respect and trust where interns and professional staff support their own and others' growth both personally and professionally. Staff members model ethical and professional clinical approaches and they participate in teaching through supervision, consultation, and seminars devoted to the professional development of interns. Staff members utilize a variety of theoretical orientations in our clinical work, including cognitive, behavioral, feminist, systems, existential, psychodynamic, and solution-focused. Regardless of the primary orientations with which each staff member identifies, there is a shared understanding and attention to the therapeutic relationship as a key component and contributor to therapy process and progress. Therefore, interns have the opportunity to get exposure to a variety of therapeutic approaches and styles, while still refining their ability to attend to relational dynamics and use the therapeutic relationship as a primary tool or change mechanism

Developmental Approach

There is attention to developmentally appropriate training experiences for optimal growth. Interns' experiences are sequential, cumulative, and graded, with increasing levels of responsibility and expectations for independent functioning throughout the internship year, to facilitate continued growth from a "trainee" identity toward a "professional" identity. Toward this end, the internship year begins with a period of orientation during which interns receive several seminars providing didactic information on the core tasks that interns will engage in throughout the year (e.g. short-term therapy, clinical interview, outreach/consultation, group therapy, crisis intervention, supervision). Interns also shadow training staff as they conduct initial needs assessments and crisis intervention sessions during their initial orientation period. They also complete a QPR (suicide prevention programming workshop that all staff and interns provide to the campus community) training, and are required to observe one of the QPR workshop presentations before they are scheduled to present these themselves. Previous training and experience is assessed, initial goals for training are agreed upon, and these training goals are

revised throughout the year based on periodic intern evaluations. Throughout the internship year, support, training, and supervision activities are geared toward assisting interns to increase their clinical and professional sophistication, knowledge, and skill, be able to take on more responsibility, and develop greater confidence and capacity for autonomous functioning.

Individualized Training:

We recognize that each intern brings a variety of skills, experiences, and training needs to the internship, and that some flexibility to tailor the training program according to the strengths, needs, and interests of each intern is necessary for optimal growth. This is accomplished in numerous ways, including customizing training contracts for each intern based on their particular interests and needs, and providing opportunities for intern input into the planning of various center and training activities.

Diversity and Multicultural Awareness

University at Buffalo Counseling Services staff and trainees represent a diverse array of racial identities, cultural identities and sexual orientations. The staff and trainees at Counseling Services are deeply committed to honoring diversity among staff by creating a welcoming and safe environment that respects difference. Counseling Services staff encourage expression and sharing of identity through various outlets including monthly "Multicultural Moments" where staff and trainees share various aspects of their identities during staff meetings.

Counseling Services staff model authenticity, openness, and pride in their respective identities. They share freely about themselves and their lives while being curious about each other's background and identities, and how these impact their personal and professional selves.

Our internship program attends to diversity/multicultural issues throughout various training activities, including didactic training, supervision, and actual clinical experiences with a diverse client population. The staff of Counseling Services is committed to the awareness and affirmation of diversity in all our clinical and professional endeavors. Multicultural awareness and sensitivity pervade all training and service at our center. The student population here at UB is quite diverse not only among traditionally under-represented American groups, but also among international students. Interns are provided with exposure to clients of differing ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientations, socioeconomic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, ages, genders, and abilities. Several seminars are presented throughout the year addressing various topics related to diversity and multicultural issues. Workshops are provided to the university community in an effort to assist in the celebration of diversity throughout the campus. We strive to recruit interns who share our commitment to embracing the challenges and rewards of gearing services to such a broad-ranging population. We are also aware that multicultural factors are inexorably linked with issues of power, privilege, oppression and inequity that exist within various social/economic/political systems. Hence, there is attention to the ways in which psychologists and other mental health professionals may incorporate values of social justice within their clinical and professional work.

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