About the Program
About the Program
Structure of the Program
The internship begins on July 1st and concludes on June 30th of each academic year, and provides 2000 hours of training. Interns in this program are referred to as "psychology interns." Interns will complete the internship program over 12 months on a full-time (40 hours/week) basis. Interns are matched to one of the following clinical tracks; Hillside Children’s Center, URMC Rochester Addiction-Forensic Clinical Research, Rochester Regional Health (RRH) Outpatient Behavioral Health (Adult), Rochester Regional Health (RRH) Integrated Care, Rochester Regional Health (RRH) Neuropsychology at the Neuroscience Institute, Rochester Psychological Assessment & Testing (RPAT), or Ontario County Mental Health (OCMH).
Interns spend 4 days a week with their clinical track and 1 day a week at URMC Strong Recovery for additional supervision, didactics, clinical discussions, and scholar activities, unless otherwise specified.
The training curriculum has been designed in accordance with the internship program’s required competencies. Each competency is met through both experiential and didactic training. While in their clinical settings, interns provide supervised behavioral health intervention and/or assessment services to community members. Intervention may include individual, group, and/or family therapy, and may be provided for children, adolescents and/or adults, depending on the clinical placement. Assessment opportunities are provided at each placement site. Therapy clients, type and number of assessments, consultation work, and research vary depending on the specific site.
Interns across clinical sites have the opportunity to gain experience working with and consulting across a variety of disciplines as a component of their training program, as each track involves collaboration across various systems of care. Experiences may involve collaboration and consultation with various agencies and/or providers within multiple care disciplines and settings.
All interns are provided with didactic and experiential training in the use of telehealth and interactive therapeutic technologies, as these skills are critical for providers in highly underserved areas and are core to the mission of the internship training program. Additionally, interns have the opportunity to engage in alternate experiences including training and resource development.
Interns are provided with regular supervision, which focuses on clinical skills development as well as addressing such issues as ethics and professionalism. Interns are also provided with training in the effective provision of supervision and given opportunities to practice these skills through simulated supervision exercises and/or provision of supervision to practicum students, undergraduates, or Master’s level interns. All competencies are additionally supported through the provision of relevant didactics provided by content experts.
All interns are expected to conduct research through at least one ongoing “scholar project”, the focus of which is determined collaboratively between the primary supervisors and the intern.
Evidence-Based Practices
Interns will receive training in the following evidence-based practices: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing (MI) and motivational enhancement therapy (MET). Training occurs through site-specific clinical trainings that occur at the beginning of the internship year, ongoing supervision by clinical supervisors, and a resource library for use by all trainees and staff.
Interns attend a weekly seminar series/didactics with clinical experts within the community. Interns will be able to observe and/or listen to presentations on diverse topics pertaining to current research on evidence based psychotherapy, assessment, consultation, trauma-informed practice, addiction research, ethics, professionalism, interactive technologies, and telehealth as well as additional topics.
Research and Scholarship
Interns are trained in the scientist-practitioner model by incorporating scholarship into the internship curriculum. Interns are supported in the development and execution of a year-long scholar project. A scholar project is an independent piece of scholarly work that is independent from dissertation work; it can be completed as part of ongoing research at one of the clinical sites or can be a unique project, developed by an intern and deployed at one or multiple internship sites.
Given the focus on digital technologies, it is asked that interns incorporate digital components into their scholar projects, if possible.
Interns present their scholar project to their cohort, faculty, and community leaders at the end of internship. Interns also present their scholarly work at University of Rochester’s Department of Psychiatry Trainee Poster Day. Scholar projects can be:
- Independent projects unique to interns’ interests and career goals
- Unique approaches to existing work and projects at clinical sites
- Reviews of intersections of digital and mechanical approaches to mental health
Scholar projects cannot be:
- The same project as intern dissertations
In addition to presentations, interns are encouraged to attend and submit to presentations at internal, regional, national, and international conferences. Interns are also encouraged to submit their scholarly work to publication. Should interns choose to submit their work to conferences or publications, there is support available to assist with this process.
Research Support
The internship program includes multiple opportunities for scholarly support and conference attendance. Interns should discuss questions regarding research support and conference attendance with the Training Director. Interns will be assisted with their scholar projects by supervisors and have the opportunity to attend additional research meetings as needed.
Didactic Seminar Series
Interns receive 2 hours of didactic training each week. Didactic training is incorporated to further support interns’ continued growth and development. Didactic training includes training provided by university faculty, consortium supervisors, and experts and professionals from the community. Didactic training focuses on the training program competencies and includes topics such as ethics and professionalism.
View Didactic Calendar
Supervision
All interns receive at least 4 hours of supervision per week. Interns are provided two hours of individual supervision by a licensed psychologist who oversees the interns’ clinical work at their clinical sites. All interns participate in 1 hour of group supervision through URMC and 1 hour of additional group or individual supervision through their specific track or research.