Internship Mission

The mission of the pre-doctoral psychology internship at Sarah A. Reed Children's Center is to prepare students through training, practice, scholarly inquiry, and role modeling for entry into the field of professional psychology.  The internship has a commitment to train psychology interns to act competently, respectfully, and ethically in the provision of mental health and psycho-educational services to children, adolescents, and their families.

Sarah Reed offers an intensive, high quality, and progressive internship experience in the practice of professional psychology. The Director of Clinical Services and Psychology Internship Training along with the Internship Training Committee and Internship Advisory Council is directly responsible for the integrity and quality of the internship program. The internship is broadly focused on preparing the intern for the autonomous practice of professional psychology with an emphasis on integrating evidence-based practice and best practice approaches across settings. Evidence-based practice is viewed broadly and incorporates evidence-based interventions as well as evidence-based decision-making such as implementing practices and intervention strategies informed by hypothesis generation, data gathering, and outcome measurement at the individual client level. As a faculty, we believe that there is a mutual influence between research and practice in the broad professional practice and scope of psychology. Our general philosophy primarily reflects a commitment to the Practitioner-Scholar/Scientist model integrating ideas and concepts from other models of training (i.e. Local Clinical Scientist and Reflective Practitioner). Professional competence, mastery, critical thinking, and identity are nurtured and consolidated through regular and formal supervised clinical practice, didactic training, scholarly inquiry, research, and the opportunity to work and collaborate with professionals in a multidisciplinary model. In a coordinated, organized, and selective manner, interns are able to assume increasingly major clinical responsibilities with appropriate supervisory direction, guidance, role modeling, and support.

The philosophy and goals of the internship training program derive from several sources including models of training in professional psychology, the priorities and strengths of the psychology staff and the internship site and the mission of the Center. We are committed to maintaining a balanced foundation between science and practice, by affirming our disciplines historically strong links between the inquiry of the scientist and the application of the practitioner. There is a strong emphasis on understanding the “local environment” and the impact of the local context in practice. Fundamentally underlying our model and foremost among the critical linkages between science and practice is the psychologist’s reliance on observational skills, data collection, and hypothesis testing in the context of practice (Stricker and Trierweiler, 1995, 1997-1998; Schon, 1983, 1963). By providing an internship experience fostering professional development and growth, our program prepares interns in their final stages of training for practice as competent, ethical, and responsible professional psychologists.

Our model provides a unique balance of opportunities for the practice of professional psychology and our internship is unique in its combined school/clinical training. The internship experience is broadly focused on preparation of the intern for the autonomous practice of psychology, with a particular emphasis on practice within agency and school-based settings. While the psychology staff and the interns come from a variety of academic backgrounds and areas of specialization, the internship program itself most closely reflects a Practitioner-Scholar/Scientist model. Integrated into this model is an emphasis on preparation for practice grounded in the scholarly/scientific discipline of psychology and functioning as a “scientist in a local setting” (Stricker and Trierwieler, 1995 p. 999). Training is designed to provide multiple opportunities for the translation of theory, knowledge, and scientific inquiry into “real world” practice. Specifically, we believe psychological practice is guided by critically applying psychological science. A practitioner should be capable of case formulation, critical inquiry, and the application of the scientific knowledge base to practice. While we encourage efforts to do active, applied research in clinical practice, we also use scientific inquiry and research along with the development of data-based clinical judgment to strengthen practice in order to become skilled practitioners.

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