As we revised our Counseling Center mission statement, we chose the words "supporting and empowering our diverse student community" to represent what we all come to work for. Interns at CSU Counseling Center join a group of psychologists who are dedicated to providing access to care for our students and excellent training for interns and trainees. At the CSU Counseling Center, the aim of our training program is: “to prepare interns to function competently and independently as health service psychologists.” Our mission statement explicitly states that we are “committed to providing high quality experiential training to graduate students to support their development as aspiring mental health professionals." Our program design draws from the practitioner-scholar model of psychological practice, with an emphasis on diversity and social justice.
We are committed to supporting and challenging our interns to reach the standard of performance in each of the profession-wide competency areas: research; ethical and legal standards; diversity; professional values, attitudes, and behavior; communication and interpersonal skills; assessment; intervention; supervision; and consultation and interprofessional/interdisciplinary skills. The students at CSU are incredibly diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, social class, ability, country of origin, religion, etc., providing an excellent opportunity for interns to apply their awareness of diversity to improve effectiveness of treatment. Interns become skillful with crisis walk-in, initial phone screening, and group therapy, and they gain experience supervising practicum counselors during their year with us.
The didactic portion of our program includes formalized activities such as clinical supervision, in-service presentations, Intern Seminars, diversity discussions and case conferences. Our Intern Seminars incorporate psychological literature and often have experiential components. The topics of our Intern seminars derived from our staff expertise in diversity, holistic practices, group and couples therapy, and the profession wide competencies overall. Modeling and experience are integrated in an intern’s daily service activities and interactions with the senior staff. We seek to balance collegiality with modeling appropriate professional behaviors and boundaries.
Approximately half of our interns go on to post-docs or positions at university counseling centers. The Cleveland State University campus is located between downtown Cleveland (featuring big city architecture, entertainment and a casino) and University Circle (center to several world-class museums and the Cleveland Orchestra). Outlying areas include the Cleveland Metroparks, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Cedar Point amusement park. Please visit our website - http://www.csuohio.edu/counselingcenter/ - for more comprehensive information about our Training Program, our Center, and Cleveland State University.