UBC utilizes a Collaborative, Stepped Care approach to service delivery, providing a broad range of services and resources to a large and highly diverse young adult/adult university student population of more than 60,000 students. Services we provide within this approach include initial assessment and referral to the most appropriate level of care, crisis intervention, individual and group counselling, single session therapy, consultation to staff and faculty, and collaborating with mental health professionals both on and off campus. Presenting concerns at the center are often severe and complex and include anxiety, depression, relationship and family, traumatic experiences, eating and body image, substance use, identity/transition/adjustment, risk (e.g., self-harming behaviours, suicidality), and psychopathology.
The Pre-doctoral Internship Program at the University of British Columbia is committed to providing a Scientist-Practitioner model of training. Training activities and services we provide reflect the interdependent nature in social science and clinical practice. Within this model, focus is on careful assessment of client concerns, the application of critical thinking and conceptualization, drawing on proven treatments, and evaluation of interventions. We embrace a developmental approach to facilitate the transition from graduate student to professional psychologist.
Our training program builds on the knowledge and skills that interns acquire during graduate training and prepares them for entry level positions as generalist practitioners. Interns develop core skills in clinical assessment, individual and group counselling, crisis intervention, collaborative stepped care, and providing supervision to master's-level counsellors. For applicants with training/experience in sport psychology, we provide opportunities to work with varsity student-athletes.
Our internship program begins with a structured 3-week training orientation, with the focus of acquainting interns with UBC’s service delivery model, policies and procedures of the Counselling Services, expectations of the internship, and the development of intern goals. In collaboration with staff and supervisors, interns identify initial strengths and growing edges. As the internship unfolds, new goals are set and interns assume increasing levels of responsibility and autonomy.
We expect that interns will make developmental transitions throughout the program including enhancing confidence in their skills, consolidating their professional identity, and increasing their ability to function autonomously. By the end of the internship, interns are prepared for entry-level practice and commonly achieve employment as practitioners in independent practice or community mental health center or a health maintenance organization, medical contexts, as staff members in university/college counselling centers, and as adjunct/faculty members in academic departments.
The goal of our Internship Program at Counselling Services is to provide a training environment that will prepare interns to become competent and versatile generalists in the practice of professional psychology. The Pre-doctoral Internship at the University of British Columbia has six overarching goals, which reflect our training philosophy. They are: (1) To facilitate clinical competence in assessment and case conceptualization; (2) To develop effective clinical intervention skills, and demonstrate these skills with a variety of presenting concerns and in different modalities (e.g., individual and group counselling); (3) To enhance awareness and knowledge of cultural and individual diversity, and integrate this understanding into all forms of service delivery; (4) To develop knowledge and skill in consultation and collaborative stepped care; (5) To acquire skills in providing supervision to practicum counsellors; and (6) To facilitate the acquisition of skills and competencies in self-awareness/reflective practice, professional behaviour, and professional identity development.
Counselling Services is committed to pluralism, the creation of an inclusive campus community in which students, staff, and faculty feel respected, valued and celebrated for their unique identity and experience as well as empowered to contribute fully as active participants in our campus community. In keeping with this commitment, Counselling Services provides services and programs which are sensitive and responsive to the broad range of diversity within the student population including but not limited to gender, race, culture, ability, and sexual orientation.
