St. Cloud VA Health Care System (HCS) provides medical care to Veterans from Minnesota, northern Iowa, northwestern Wisconsin, and eastern North and South Dakota. The Health Care System delivers care to more than 39,500 unique patients annually in the Upper Midwest region. Sixty percent of our total Veteran workload is over the age of 66. Our facility also has three Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) located in Alexandria, Brainerd, and Montevideo, Minnesota. Over 11,500 Veterans are enrolled for care in the three CBOCs. Our local facility and surrounding Community-Based Outpatient Clinics serve a large percentage of rural Veterans. Approximately 76% of our enrollees reside in rural areas.
The Psychology Internship Program at St. Cloud VA Health Care System is Fully Accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of American Psychological Association (APA). Questions related to the program's accreditation status should be addressed to: APA, Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242; (202) 336-5979; e-mail: apaaccred@apa.org; Web: www.apa.org/ed/accreditation.
Applicants will be notified no later than December 1st regarding invitations for interviews. All interviews will be conducted virtually or by telephone this year.
Services include programs such as: the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic, Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI), Psychological Assessment, Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (RRTP), Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Recovery Center (PRRC), Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Unit, Outpatient Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Treatment Program, Mental Health Intensive Case Management (MHICM), Homeless Programming, and Vocational Rehabilitation services. Additional mental health services can be found in the Primary and Specialty Medicine and Extended Care Services Lines. The psychology staff work closely with Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) and within Behavioral Health Interdisciplinary Program (BHIP) teams in the facility. The psychology service staff includes about 30 psychology positions when fully staffed, with clinicians from diverse training backgrounds as well as psychometrists.
The primary objective of the Psychology Internship Training Program is to train doctoral level psychology students to function as independent and ethically-minded entry-level professionals who are proficient in the core competencies of applied health service psychology. It is designed to facilitate the integration and consolidation of the prerequisite academic and experiential learning through a full year of supervised training. The Psychology Internship Training Program’s philosophy is based on the scientist-practitioner model, with an emphasis on training in the provision of mental health services in a medical setting. Our training approach emphasizes implementation and promotion of empirically-based treatment modalities and protocols while fostering the psychological flexibility, problem-solving attitudes, and proficiency in individual/cultural differences and diversity needed to apply empirically grounded treatment approaches. We encourage the review of empirical literature to ground and enhance the intern’s professional skills alongside the professional experience of learning from mentors through ongoing supervision and consultation. As scientist-practitioners, we foster an appreciation for the scientific underpinnings of psychology and ethically-based professional decision-making.
The Psychology Internship Training Program is focused on providing generalist training in health service psychology in order to ensure the VA has a constant source of well-trained and qualified psychologists. Our program is designed to be grounded in the understanding that a psychologist must be able to demonstrate core foundational and functional competencies prior to specialization. Thus, interns will have a set of shared core experiences, didactics, and seminars that will allow cohesive cohort development, while also providing a range of optional rotations to suit varied training needs and professional aspirations. Interns take an active role in establishing training goals with each supervisor and rotation experience, as well as overarching goals for the training year.
