UB's professional staff consists of licensed (or license eligible) counseling and clinical psychologists, licensed social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and a state certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, respresenting a wide range of clinical and professional experiences, areas of expertise, therapy orientations, and styles. We hope to expose our interns to both breadth and depth of training, as they further hone their existing knowledge and skills, and also challenge themselves to move beyond their comfort zones to develop newl knowledge and skill during the internship year.
We offer a full range of training and professional experiences typically found within a large university counseling center with diverse client populations. Interns can expect to provide individual, couples, and group psychotherapy, crisis intervention, outreach and consultation to the university community, and receive supervision and training for all these activities. They also provide training and clinical supervision to our practicum students, and receive meta-supervision. Our interns also participate in center committees and have input into our policies and procedures, including those related to all our training programs (doctoral psychology internship, Social Work internship, advanced practicum, externship, and first year practicum programs).
Attention to diversity, in its various forms, is woven through all we do here, clinically, professionally, and personally. Center staff are committed to ongoing development of clinical and outreach services for traditionally underserved populations, as well as supporting each other for continued growth in cultural sensitivity and competent practice. Understanding the complex ways that our multiple identities influence our beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiencesf power/privilege and oppression/marginalization, and how these intersect with the experiences of others (clients, colleagues, supervisees/supervisors, etc.), and how this can inform our actions is a deeply held value.
UBCS is committed to expanding our outreach efforts to diverse student populations, recognizing some unique challenges that different identities can present (such as students of color, student athletes, international students). UB is a diverse racially, ethnically, sexual & gender identities, and otherwise. UB also has a large international student population, and Counseling Services is well utilized by international students. Through the outreach mentorship aspect of internship training, interns have an opportunity to gain more experience in reaching out to certain populations of interest with staff members that hold similar interests.
We are committed to providing quality training and supervision for all our trainee groups, with our doctoral psychology interns being a top priority. As an APA accredited internship prgoram (APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation 750 First St. NE Washington, DC 20002-4242 Ph 202-336-5979 http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/homepage.html), we are current and in compliance with current APA SoA standards for training in the profession wide competences laid out by APA .
We work to promote a developmental model of training, with a primary goal for psychology interns to transition from a "trainee" to a "professional" identity, with increased confidence and capacity for autonomous functioning by the end of the internship year. Consistent with our developmental model, the types and amounts of clinical and professional experiences are structured throughout the internship year based on the differing needs of interns for support and challenge throughout the year. We also recognize the value of collegial consultation, and have an "open-door" policy for staff and trainees alike. We are very aware that the work we do can be stressful and draining. Hence, it is especially important that we co-create an interpersonal envrionment among staff and trainees that fosters a sense of support, caring, and safety. Our interns have consistently communicated to us how supported they have felt during their internship with us.
Recognizing the importance of ongoing self-evaluation and ongoing adjustments to our training programs based on trainee feedback, we engage in informal and formal evaluations throughout the internship year. Interns are formally assessed on the key profession wide completences consistent with the Standards of Accreditation (SoA) two to three times during the year. Supervisors, Training Director, training staff, and all aspects of the internship program (structures, processes, and experiences) are also evaluated by our interns formally 2-3 times during the year, as well as ongoing informal feedback throughout the year. We take interns' feedback seriously, and have continued to make adjustments to our internship program based on past years' feedback.
