Detailed information about the APA-accredited internship program at Harris County Juvenile Probation Department is available at: hcjpd.harriscountytx.gov (On the "About" tab, click on "Join our Team", under "Quick Links" click on "Internship Program", then click on "Doctoral Internship Program in Psychology." The client population at Harris County Juvenile Probation Department is comprised of youth with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and diagnoses. Recipients of mental health services are children ages 10 to 17 years who are involved in the juvenile justice system. The primary training site will be the Juvenile Justice Center in Houston, Texas, which houses approximately 250 youth. However, there will also be opportunities to provide services within the community; therefore, personal transportation is strongly recommended. The primary emphasis of the internship program is assessment-focused. Our department provides general psychological evaluations as well as more forensically oriented evaluations.
Interns will participate in three major rotations. They will spend their first rotation primarily conducting general psychological evaluations with the juvenile forensic population, with a focus on clarifying diagnoses and making appropriate recommendations for treatment and placement. The second rotation will give the intern opportunities to conduct more specific forensic evaluations, such as when the court is considering transferring the youth to the adult criminal justice system or fitness to proceed (competency to stand trial) evaluations. At times, such evaluations might require an intern to provide court testimony regarding the findings of their evaluation. The third rotation will consist of the intern being an integral part of one of our specialty courts, either the Court 360 for youth who have extensive mental health needs, or the CARE Court, for youth who are involved in commerical sex trafficking. This role involves evaluating youth for the appropriateness of speciality court involvement, possibily providing short-term psychotherapy to youth who are awaiting transfer to a more permanent placement, extensive multidisciplinary consultation, and interfacing with judges and attorneys. Throughout the year, interns will also have a small caseload of individual therapy clients of youth who are residing in the detention center. There might also be opportunties to provide group therapy to youth who are in the detention center or who are residing in the community, but this is not guaranteed. There is also an opportunity to provide outpatient fitness attainment services through our Legal Education Attainment Program (LEAP).
Due to COVID-19, some training experiences have been modified and at this time, it is unknown how long these modifications will continue. Although we had previously been back in the office and majority of services provided were in-person, we have recently returned to more virtual/telehealth services due to the rise in COVID numbers again (as of August 2023). We certainly hope that we will soon be able to resume in-person services again. At this time, masks are recommended to be worn by all staff in our building (unless staff is in their own enclosed office space) and we attempt to maintain social distancing when feasible. We are committed to providing a safe environment for our youth, staff, and interns.
Although we are working towards "getting back to normal," we realize that the experiences of many applicants have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, HCJPD will continue to be flexible regarding some requirements, such as minimum number of hours and number of reports written.
We are excited to announce our Forensic Unit and Specialty Court postdoctoral training positions have been determined to meet the ABFP criteria for the experience waiver. ABFP offers waiver of the 5-year requirement for applicants who successfully complete an approved 2000-hour formal postdoctoral training program in forensic psychology.