Clinical Activities
Clinical services are being offered in a hybrid model. Clients may be referred for telemental health services via a video-based, end-to-end encrypted platform or in-person services based on clinical need, preference, and access.
Check-in: A check-in is the primary entry point into the clinical system. The appointment ranges from five-30 minutes based on client need and presenting concerns. The purpose of this appointment is to complete a brief screening and determine the next appropriate clinical intervention.
Intake Appointment: Intake Appointments serve as a comprehensive psychosocial assessment with clients with whom the intern will work as part of their caseload. Clients are most often seen for individual therapy following this appointment.
Crisis Intake: These appointments provide same-day support for students who are in distress or experiencing a mental health emergency.
Case Management: Case management appointments support clients with getting connected to off-campus support. Appointments are typically 30 minutes but can be longer depending on assessment and treatment planning required to support the client.
Individual Therapy: Individual therapy begins at the time of the Intake Appointment during which the clinician gathers more complete information about the client’s presenting concerns, clarifies goals of short-term therapy, and begins therapy work with use of therapeutic interventions in session. Individual therapy appointments typically last 45-50 minutes.
Group Screening Appointment: Group screening appointments are completed for clients who will be referred to group therapy. The appointment may be done individually or with a co-facilitator.
Group Therapy: CAPS offers structured and process groups each semester.
Workshops: CAPS offers regular workshops focused on coping skills for students.
Community Education/Outreach and Consultation Activities: Interns participate in at least six outreach/community education events during their internship year and as clinical schedules allow. Outreach/community education opportunities may include: speaking to university classes about mental health topics; providing training to University Housing staff; assisting with orientation programs; staffing informational kiosks; providing programming for other university events; or leading a workshop at CAPS.
Provision of Supervision: Interns will supervise externs from the local area doctoral programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology. Supervision will occur weekly for one hour. Interns may also have the opportunity to supervise a different supervisee each semester depending on the structure of the experience and the number of externs working at CAPS during the training year.
Training and Supervision
All supervisory relationships will begin with review of a supervision agreement form. This agreement form will also include a telesupervision agreement addendum given the possibility of telesupervision in alignment with the telesupervision policy. This format may change in response to updated guidance from the university, the Virginia Board of Psychology, the American Psychological Association Commission on Accreditation, and/or the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers.
Individual Supervision: Interns receive two hours of individual supervision per week with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist throughout their training year. The individual supervision focuses on intervention, diagnostic considerations, case conceptualization, and the professional growth of the intern. Interns are encouraged to ask questions about their clinical work, the clinical system, and caseload management regularly throughout the training year. Supervision also includes discussion of direct observations of services provided, whether live observations of clinical work or observations of recorded sessions.
Group Supervision: Interns receive at least one hour of group supervision per week with a licensed staff member. Group supervision will focus on clinical service and intern professional growth and adjustment. Group supervision will include case presentations to support intern development related to communication, consultation, and diagnostic impressions.
Supervision of Group Therapy: Interns receive supervision of group therapy from their group co-facilitator or a licensed staff member when they facilitate a group with another trainee. This supervision is typically scheduled for 30 minutes immediately after group. It addresses items related to the group as well as intern group therapy skill development.
Supervision of Supervision: Interns receive weekly supervision of the supervision they provide to psychology externs with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Supervision of supervision will be provided in a group supervision format approximately biweekly for 90 minutes and individually for one hour approximately biweekly. Time in this supervision will be spent processing the experience of providing supervision, reviewing extern performance, reviewing relevant literature related to supervision and clinical cases, and viewing digital recordings or discussing direct observations of both supervision meetings and extern clinical work.
Mentorship Opportunity: Interns have the opportunity to consult with a member of the CAPS multidisciplinary team to learn more about that staff member’s area of interest/expertise and/or approach to treatment. The intention of this opportunity is to facilitate opportunities for connection with staff members with whom interns do not already have working relationships and to support interns in learning about psychological services from a range of perspectives.
Supervisors Meeting: All staff involved in intern supervision and support will meet regularly to discuss intern progress and ways the training team can support interns in working toward their goals. Information discussed during the meetings is not shared beyond the meeting attendees. Interns are encouraged to ask their individual supervisor for information about the content relative to their performance at the meeting for ongoing learning and growth.
Seminars: Interns participate in training seminars throughout their internship year to supplement the direct service, facilitate ongoing learning, and support development related to the competency areas. Seminars may be offered in person or virtually based on the intern and staff member telework schedule.
Interns participate in a biweekly, 90-minute, competency-based seminar organized as “mini courses.” The syllabus for this seminar is included as an appendix in this Training Manual. The mini courses focus on legal and ethical principles, assessment, intervention, and research. All seminars integrate cultural considerations, ethics, and current research and are scheduled in a way that considers the intern’s developmental level.
Interns will participate in a biweekly, 90-minute Multicultural Lab. This lab is focused on ongoing growth and development of multicultural awareness and skills. Throughout the lab, interns will engage in self-reflection and apply the discussions to their clinical work and emerging professional identity development.
Interns will participate in a monthly outreach seminar with the Coordinator, Outreach Services. This seminar will be focused on the function of outreach on a university campus, strategies and best practices related to building collaborations with campus partners, completing needs assessments, cultural considerations with outreach.
Interns will participate in a monthly group therapy seminar with the Coordinator, Group Therapy Services. This seminar will be focused on different approaches to group therapy and offer consultation related to the interns’ experience with the groups they are facilitating. Cultural considerations and ethics associated with group therapy will be integrated throughout the seminar.
Group and other Case Management: These case conference meetings provide an opportunity for interns to participate in multidisciplinary discussions with clinical staff about complex clinical cases, group therapy cases, ethical dilemmas, and case management.
Diversity Dialogues: All CAPS staff meet regularly to discuss ways to infuse cultural considerations into all aspects of our clinical work. These meetings may also include affinity group meetings based on staff self-identification.
Assessment: Interns are expected to utilize and incorporate the CCAPS-62 during their intake assessment with clients and the CCAPS-34 during their follow-up appointments with clients consistent with the expectations outlined in the Clinician Manual. Interns are encouraged to work with their individual supervisor to discuss client-specific nuances to incorporating the CCAPS in their clinical work.
Interns will also integrate an additional assessment with two clients during the training year. Interns will select opportunities to integrate an assessment with clients to inform their treatment or help clients better understand their presenting concerns. Some examples include but are not limited to: the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI), Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma, or the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26).
Administration, Research, Presentations
Committees: Interns may join a committee during the spring semester of the internship year. CAPS currently offers the following committees: Diversity Committee, Outreach Committee, Technology Committee, and Training Committee. Available committees will be reviewed at the start of the spring semester.
Advocacy Project and Presentation: The advocacy project is an opportunity for interns to collaborate with a campus partner to either support their work or enhance the working relationships between our offices. The goal of the advocacy project is to make research-informed, culturally, and contextually relevant recommendations to campus partners based on a careful assessment of current needs. The project provides an opportunity for interns to develop additional expertise and experience in an area of interest to them while also developing skills as a culturally-informed professional consultant. Interns will identify a campus partner serving a population of interest and work with that campus partner, with their affirmative consent and collaboratively, to support their work. Through the project, interns can provide consultation about programming needs for campus partners, receive feedback from the campus partner about ideas for enhancing services at the counseling center for a certain student population, or support the campus partner with either developing a new program or conducting an evaluation of a current program. The advocacy project topic must be relevant to the needs of our campus partners and their collaboration with CAPS. Interns will present their work at the end of the training year.
Clinical Case Presentation: Interns present two formal clinical case presentations during internship (one during the fall semester and one during the summer semester).
Supervision Presentation: Interns present one formal supervision presentation during the training year at the end of the spring semester.
Staff Meetings: As members of the team, interns are scheduled to attend relevant staff meetings that include all CAPS staff.