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Statement of Mission and Faith view | word | pdf
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Application Face Sheet view | word | pdf
Program Goals and Exit Competencies >
Training Model
The internship is an important year in an intern's professional development, which provides a "bridge" between his or her prior academic and clinical training and future professional practice. By taking a developmental approach to supervision, each intern's individual growth is facilitated by building on his or her already existing strengths and competencies, and through identifying the areas he or she wants to develop during the internship year. CACTC also provides opportunities for each intern to expand his or her knowledge base, and repertoire of, effective clinical interventions with a diverse range of persons. Through supervision, mentoring and involvement in CACTC training activities, interns grow in their awareness of the multifaceted nature of persons, and the interface between the psychological, sociological, biological, and spiritual dimensions of life.
The CACTC internship program embodies a practitioner-scholar model of training (Vail Conference) in order to promote competencies congruent with the discipline of professional psychology and informed by the Christian faith. While this model of training is primarily geared towards preparing interns for applied practice, it is built on the assumption that well-researched and empirically supported treatments help to provide a strong, conceptual framework for this clinical practice to take place. In other words, the goal of this particular training model is to develop interns' skills in effectively making use of, and contributing to, the scholarly professional literature as it applies to direct service provision.
This synthesis of science and practice is accomplished through building on the intern's graduate education and emerging skills of effectively integrating and applying the evidence-based practice recommended in the field to provide the highest level of client care. This atmosphere of learning is cultivated through providing training presentations grounded in the professional literature, sharing relevant reading materials and encouraging interns to utilize resources available on-site, on the Internet, or through Wheaton's library. In addition to required case presentations, interns are also required to provide a minimum of 1 formal presentation during the CACTC Seminar which demonstrates their ability to effectively synthesize the research literature on a particular topic of their choice.
At times, supervisors and interns may also work collaboratively on writing and/or research projects (based on program needs, etc) This serves a dual purpose of providing critical modeling of the importance of contributing to the scholarly literature/professional community while also helping to hone the intern’s skills in these areas. For example, in recent years interns were involved in a research project (through the CESI program within CACTC) where interns worked on the research team which conducted the survey research, analyzed the results, presented the findings at the an APPIC conference. Interns were actively involved in each phase of this project (ie-developing the survey, data collection, data analysis, presentation of findings at professional conference).
The primary method for learning is experiential, augmented by individual and group supervision, seminars, and in-service training. These modalities provide the supervisory guidance, mentoring, role modeling, and observation that is necessary to acquire clinical competencies. Live supervision is also utilized at some of the sites in order to further hone clinical skills in work with both individuals and families, shadowing may be done at LCHC for interns learning the BHC model.
Given the importance of self-reflection as an aspect of professional growth, CACTC requires some level of personal disclosure during our application process and holds that a reasonable level of self disclosure is necessary to fully engage in and learn from the supervision process during the training year.
Program Goals/Exit Competencies:
The program education and training objectives reflect both the requisite skills essential for psychological practice and the distinctive mission of the Consortium to cultivate skills in work with underserved groups from a Christian perspective. The goals of the program focus on building intern competencies in 7 core domains: Professional Conduct and Ethics; Assessment & Diagnosis; Therapeutic Skills; Work with Diverse and/or Underserved Populations; Integration of Faith with Clinical Practice; Consultation, Evaluation and Supervision; and Personal/Interpersonal Functioning. These competencies are listed below:
- Intern will demonstrate knowledge of theoretical and empirical bases of psychology, and will demonstrate the ability to integrate that knowledge creatively to a variety of clinical situations (Therapeutic Skills: Theories and Methods of ESTs).
- Intern will demonstrate use of a multi-method approach in assessment and diagnosis, which takes into account contextual factors and strengths in addition to presenting problems (Assessment & Diagnosis).
- Intern will demonstrate awareness of the salient issues involved in psychological consultation and will be able to integrate this into his/her role as a consultant (Theories and/or Methods of Consultation, Evaluation and Supervision).
- Intern will demonstrate an understanding of the theories and/or methods of program evaluation and a commitment to excellence by engaging in regular and ongoing program assessment (Theories and/or Methods of Consultation, Evaluation and Supervision).
- Intern will demonstrate understanding of program management, supervision models and/or techniques and will be able to integrate this effectively into practice (Theories and/or Methods of Consultation, Evaluation and Supervision).
- Interns will demonstrate knowledge of APA ethical standards in the practice of psychology and will demonstrate behavior consistent with these standards (Professional Conduct and Ethics).
- Interns will become proficient in their understanding of, and ability to practice with, a wide range of persons and disorders (Therapeutic Skills: Theories and Methods of Effective Intervention).
- Interns will develop their identity as a professional psychologist in a multi-disciplinary treatment setting through demonstrating an ability to evaluate their work and appropriately utilizing supervision and other collegial relationships to facilitate their personal and professional growth (Personal and Interpersonal Functioning).
- Interns will successfully complete all internship requirements in preparation for licensure.
- Intern will demonstrate awareness of the interface between psychological and religious/spiritual aspects of personhood from a distinctly Christian perspective, while also respecting and valuing a diverse range of religious/spiritual perspectives in their work with clients (Integration of Faith and Practice).
- Interns will develop their understanding of the contemporary models of Christian integration and will learn how to apply to psychological practice (Integration of Faith and Practice).
- Interns will develop their multicultural competence/credibility in work with a diverse spectrum of client populations and presenting problems. (Issues of Cultural and Individual Diversity/Work with Underserved Populations).
- Interns will develop competence in a variety of psychotherapeutic, community-based and/or other systemic/ecological approaches specifically related to work with underserved groups (Issues of Cultural and Individual Diversity/Work with Underserved Populations).
- As practitioner-scholars, interns will demonstrate an understanding of the complementary relationship between science and practice through actively utilizing and/or contributing to the professional scholarly literature as it applies to direct service provision (Methods of Scholarly Inquiry).