| Brief description of the typical work day for an intern at this training site |
The Psychology Doctoral Internship Training Program at Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Center experience was created to provide interns with a comprehensive, productive, and diverse experience with children and adolescents across a broad range of psychopathology, child/adolescent development, gender and cultural diversity. This extensive experience provides interns a solid foundation in which they may hone their skills and determine possible areas of specialization.
The Sagamore Internship begins the last Thursday in August and continues for a full calendar year, finishing on the last Wednesday in August. Interns generally work 40-45 hours a week with one late evening to accommodate families. The Sagamore Internship primarily takes place at our main campus in Dix Hills. Interns complete a 12 month rotation on the inpatient setting, and are additionally assigned one full day to the outpatient Waverly Avenue Clinic at Tecumseh Elementary School for the year.
The following are a brief description of the inpatient units. Each Intern is assigned to one of these units, to be determined, based on interest and training goals
Inpatient- F Unit: Children and Adolescent, mostly girls, co-ed unit, ages 10-18.
Inpatient- E Unit: Children and Adolescent, mostly boys, co-ed unit, ages 10-18.
Inpatient- H Unit: Adolescent, mostly girl’s unit, ages 15-18.
After a comprehensive facility orientation and orientation with the Director of Psychology, interns are assigned to a treatment team. Each intern works in conjunction with a team psychologist and functions as a member of the treatment team. Under close supervision, interns are assigned up to four individual psychotherapy cases. Interns co-lead twice weekly group therapy, provide case management, participate in interdisciplinary treatment team meetings and attend diagnostic case conferences. Interns communicate directly with families and provide family consultation and therapy where clinically appropriate. The team psychologists are directly responsible for the supervision of the intern’s functioning within the team and meet with the intern for a minimum of two hours per week for supervision (i.e., reviewing all documentation as well as supervising all psychotherapy cases and group work). Interns also meet once weekly with the Director of Psychology for group supervision.
In addition to their assigned units, interns hold up to two outpatient cases at the Waverly Avenue Clinic at Tecumseh Elementary School. The Program Director, a Licensed Psychologist, is directly responsible for the supervision of the intern’s functioning within the program and meets with the intern for a minimum of one hour per week for supervision. Interns assigned to the Clinic at the Tecumseh school-based program conduct individual, family and/or group therapies with children from kindergarten through sixth grade in a fully integrated clinical and educational program. Therapeutic modalities include play therapy, CBT, family systems and psychoeducational support for parents.
Psychological assessment, report writing, and diagnostic presentations are an essential component of the Sagamore Internship. The Testing Coordinator, a Licensed Psychologist, is directly responsible for the supervision of the intern’s functioning regarding psychological assessment and meets with the intern for a minimum of one hour per week for supervision. During a week in which a testing is first assigned, an intern may expect to meet with the Testing Coordinator for two hours per week for supervision. In order to assure a breadth of experience, Interns may be assigned Psychological Evaluations across all three units, ensuring that they will have experience with a variety of patients and interact across all three multidisciplinary teams for diagnostics and case consultations. Interns administer full diagnostic assessments, score, integrate data, write up results and participate and present findings at a diagnostic case conference held on day 7 of the child’s admission. Interns complete, at minimum, 20 psychological assessments per year. During the diagnostic, the multidisciplinary team may request additional testing in order to clarify any diagnostic questions. If this is a testing that an Intern has completed, they may perform additional psychodiagnostic testing to respond to clinical questions from the treatment team. At times, the question may be neuropsychological in nature, as such, opportunities may be available for neuropsychological assessment.
All interns to have the same educational and supervisory experience regardless of rotation, track or training year. Specifically, all interns receive at least five hours of individual face to face supervision per week. All interns attend two weekly didactics; Intern Didactics and Psychological Assessment Didactic. Weekly treatment team meetings as well as attendance at 20 Diagnostic Case Conferences are mandatory for all interns.
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