The Ohio Psychology Internship (OPI) is a consortium of training sites each following a community-based practitioner model. We provide a 2,000 hour internship. Each supervisor is a licensed psychologist and is credentialed by the OPI.
OPI consortium has two distinct 40-hour a week, on-site, tracks: Outpatient Forensic Services/Community Corrections, and Corrections. Applicants can choose to apply for one or both of the tracks but interns will be matched with one track to be in all internship year (interns do not rotate between the tracks).
Outpatient Forensic Services Track - interns work in an outpatient forensic agency (Summit Psychological Associates, Inc.) where they provide individual and group counseling to outpatient forensic (majority of clients) and non-forensic clients. Each interns’ schedule includes individual clients, treatment and/or psychoeducation groups, an evaluation block, supervision, documentation/treatment planning time, and there are additional opportunities for other duties. This internship track is treatment and assessment focused with opportunities for evaluations. Therapies can include offense-related treatment for individuals with sex offense or domestic violence perpetration histories, competency restoration, substance use, and/or general mental health clients. Interns have plenty of opportunities for forensic diagnostic assessments and completion of static and dynamic risk tools. Interns can gain experience in forensic evaluations, including but not limited to Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI), Competency to Stand Trial (CST), Fitness-for-Duty and Pre-Employment evaluations. Most, if not all, evaluations do not include testing aside from MMPI-3. Additional opportunities can include being the liaison for a domestic violence misdemeanor diversion court program; engagement in additional forensic evaluations outside of their evaluation block; and/or being scheduled for a few hours a week with Oriana House, a community based correctional facility, providing brief therapy and crisis services to forensic clients. Though every effort is made to limit work within the forty-hours a week (and significant progress has been made in reducing this), forensic interns may bring work home to complete documentation or evaluations. Interns also have an opportunity to work varied 8-hour a day shifts since we are open 8am-8pm Monday-Thursday and 8am-5pm on Fridays, with a requirement of at least 2 evenings. Special attention is made when curating duties and schedules individualized to each intern based on a preference list provided to matched interns.
Corrections Track - Interns in the State Prison sites gain experience working with incarcerated persons at several Ohio based prisons including the Lorain Correctional Institution (LorCI) and Grafton Correctional Institution (GCI). LorCI is a male correctional reception center where incarcerated persons are evaluated and classified with respect to security level and healthcare needs prior to their placement at a parent facility. Services in this setting focus on mental health evaluations, brief therapeutic interventions, and crisis risk assessments. Grafton Correctional Complex is a medium-minimum security male facility that has multiple missions including a Residential Treatment Unit, outpatient services, and a correctional camp. Interns will spend their internship year split between both facilities, completing a 6-month rotation at each facility. Both correctional sites will provide the interns the opportunity to gain competency in completing mental health evaluations, psychological testing, crisis risk assessments, suicide prevention activities, group therapy, training opportunities, brief and long-term psychotherapy, completing assessments and treatment for individuals with a wide variety of clinical presentations while working in a multidisciplinary setting.
In both tracks, interns attend individual and group supervision and have documentation time in their schedules. Interns have the opportunity to interact as a consortium by engaging in weekly supervision, quarterly gatherings, and didactics twice monthly as a consortium. There are opportunities to receive additional didactic training within each track. Interns are provided with 100 hours of didactic training seminars including training on Psychology of Sex Offenders, sex offense treatment, forensic assessments, multiculturalism, supervision, providing expert witness testimony and others. Though most didactics are conducted via Microsoft Teams, interns will travel between sites at least quarterly for didactics or other activities. Interns can also have the opportunity to act as a Chief Intern or Co-Chief Intern.