California Psychology Internship CouncilGirls Inc of Alameda County
(510) 357-5515 x229
Agency Description
Our agency, Girls Incorporated of Alameda County (Girls Inc.), is a national organization that helps girls with opportunities to lead a healthy, educated, and successful lives. Since 1973, Pathways Counseling Center (a component of Girls Inc.) staff and interns have been providing mental health services at low or no cost to boys, girls, and families from diverse backgrounds with wide spread needs. Within the cities of San Leandro and Oakland, Pathways delivers evidence-based counseling and consultation services both in an outpatient setting and within various elementary, middle, and high schools. We are committed to a Community Care Model that assesses boundaries to treatment and works within the family ecosystem framework. Both Girls Inc. of Alameda County and Pathways Counseling Center (PCC) are dedicated to helping girls and families navigate barriers related to gender, racism, and socioeconomic status. Staff are trained to use a trauma-informed, youth development model. Opportunities for continued education and professional development are offered to our staff and our community. Our agency incorporates a scholar-practitioner orientation; striving for professional excellence that is grounded in theory and research, informed by experiential knowledge and ethical conduct, and imparted to through our collaborative supervision. We use these aspects of our operations to inform our work in relation to the broader community.Agency Mission
The mission of Pathway Counseling Center (Pathways) is to provide high-quality, affordable mental health services to under-served children, adolescents, and their families. A component of Girls Incorporated of Alameda County, Pathways embraces the agency's mission to inspire all girls to be strong through healthy living, smart through education, and bold through independence. Although many of Girls Inc's programs are for girls, Pathways Counseling Center serves all genders. Girls Inc. and Pathways staff are dedicated to helping children and families navigate barriers related to racism, gender inequality, and socioeconomic status. Pathways' therapists assess barriers to therapy and provide services that consider the needs and limitations of each client and family. The mission of the training program is to foster learning, assist clinicians to develop their own unique clinical skill set, and develop a collaborative cohort that promotes fruitful and expansive thinking.Population
We provide therapy services in the community, out-patient clinics, in-home (rarely, but when clinically necessary), and in schools to boys, girls, and their families. Due to our various funding streams the populations we serve are extremely diverse in terms of age, diagnosis, income, and ethnic background. In fact, 64% of the clients seen at our sites are of Hispanic and African American ethnic and cultural identity We counsel many clients through our EPSDT (Medi-Cal) contract with Alameda County, accept clinic clients on sliding scale payment, and consult with educators and see students in the school at no cost. We work with many high-risk populations and their families, juvenile probation, at-risk youth, and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) individuals.Staff (#, Degree, Prof. Lic.)
# of Psychologists: 3
# of MFT: 3
OVERALL Match Process Internship Info
| PREDOC POSITIONS | NUMBER UNFUNDED | NUMBER FUNDED | ANNUAL STIPEND | START DATE | END DATE | HOURS PER WEEK | HOURS PER YEAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half-time | 0 | 0 | N/A | 08/01/2019 | 07/31/2020 | 24 | 1152 |
| Full-time | 0 | 0 | 08/01/2019 | 07/31/2020 | 40 | 1824 |
| PREDOC POSITIONS | IND. SUPERVISION HRS/WK | GRP. SUPERVISION HRS/WK |
|---|---|---|
| Half-time | 1.00 | 2.00 |
| Full-time | 2.00 | 2.00 |
CURRENT Match Phase Needs
This Data is Informational Only. The Official Track and Available Position data is provided on the InternFit platform.
| TRACK NAME | TYPE | NUMBER OF INTERNS |
|---|---|---|
| School and out patient services FT | FT | 1 |
| School and outpatient services HT | UNDETERMINED/MULTIPLE | 1 |
Required days and times
The first five weeks of the internship requires a 30 hour a week commitment for extensive orientation. Our trainings are comprehensive and build upon each other, so we encourage interns to be available for all of the initial training hours. Group supervision is held on Wednesday afternoons from 3:00pm to 5:00pm and didactic training is on Fridays from 11:00am to 3:00pm. Individual supervision is scheduled between the intern and the supervisor. Since some of our caseload are clients being transferred from the previous intern cohort, we offer some interns an early start date in June instead of the mid-August start date. We provide training and support to these early start interns and find that this availability provides a smooth transition for the clients.Training and Education Offered
CMH MODEL: At Pathways Counseling Center, interns learn to use a Community Mental Health (CMH) model. A focus of the internship is to integrate training with the services we provide to best assist this population. Due to our CMH model, our scholar-practitioner orientation, our training integration, and the diverse populations we serve, our approach to therapy services is unique unto us. We strive to teach our interns how to provide mental health consultation within the schools we serve and within community. This CMH model assists our clinicians in helping school staff and teachers, as well as other individuals in the child’s mesosystem, to identify mental health issues and consultation allows us to help guide these individuals to the best means to promote success with these children. WEEKLY TRAINING: After the five week of orientation training, didactic seminars commence every Friday these consist of two hours of didactic training and two hours of seminars in either Clinical Documentation (CDS), Community Mental Health (CMH), and/or Trauma Focused-CBT (TF-CBT). SUPERVISION: We offer 1-2 hours of individual supervision (based on number of internship hours) per week and 2 hours of group supervision. ASSESSMENT/SCREENING: As part of our training, intern become certified in the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) Assessment, a screening tool used currently in 50 states. The CANS was developed for children’s services to support decision making, including level of care and service planning to facilitate quality improvement initiatives, and to allow for the monitoring of outcomes of services. A portion of children we see have trauma histories, and we train interns in using Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT) in working with these kids and families. TF-CBT is an evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents impacted by trauma and their parents or caregivers. DOCUMENTATION: Many of Pathways’ clients are from low-income families who utilize Medi-Cal insurance. Interns are comprehensively trained in all types of the Early and Periodic Screenings, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) Medi-cal paperwork to meet county and legal and ethical requirements. SEMINARS: As previously stated, throughout the year we also host mental health trainings and seminars for the county through the Community Mental Health Consortium that interns are invited to attend free of charge through the agency.X-Cultural Training
Opportunties:
Most of the clients seen in the clinic and at the schools are of various ethical and cultural identities. Pathways training and supervision addresses this diversity both didactically and in the use of case examples. We provide trainings, both onsite and offsite, by respected mental health therapists on race and cultural humility within the clinical hours. Our entire agency incorporates a Cultural Competency Framework. We strive to establish an inclusive work community to assist us in providing culturally responsive services. As part of the agency’s strategic business guidelines, each agency staff member has a yearly requirement to include a cultural competence performance goal. Our most recent strategic plan outlines one of our organization’s goal to help girls and families with addressing race and racism in their lives. We value interns that join our team and bring new ideas, and their own cultural informed identity, to the workspace.Language(s) staff can use in the delivery of clinical services:
Our agency has identified the need for Spanish speaking staff and interns in the delivery of clinical services. Currently we have a number of various level staff that are fluent in Spanish including a therapist, case manager, front desk coordinator, and Pathways administrative assistant. Although applications from Spanish speaking interns are desirable, we accept and consider all interns who apply no matter what languages they speak.Responsibilities
Interns work either 24 to 40 hours a week, delivering services approximately 12 to 24 hours depending on half-time or full-time status. Over the course of the year, interns should expect to earn at least 25%, and up to 50%, of direct face-to-face clinical hours (including: intake sessions; individual, child, group, and family counseling sessions; mental health workshop presenter; Malabar crisis sessions, mental health fair spokesperson, and consultation with school staff or other people in the multidisciplinary team). COORDINATED TRANSFER: While most interns are placed in mid-August, some interns are placed in the clinic in mid-June to allow for ease of client transfer from one intern cohort to the next. CLINCIAL INTAKE: Interns that start in June will have coordinated client transfer meetings with the outgoing intern then additional training for the transfer. In the clinic most of our referrals are for children and their families. Interns are assigned days to take intake calls and receive messages on their voicemail from potential clients. They are then asked to return these calls and complete an intake form with the caller’s presenting problem and possible billing type. Clients are screened by Pathways staff and then delegated to interns. ASSESSMENT: At the start of seeing a client, interns conduct a complete bio-psycho-social assessment of the case. They then determine therapeutic modality, frequency of treatment, and best treatment location site with their individual supervisor. DOCUMENTATION: Prior to services, interns are trained to screen, bill, and provide proper documentation for Medi-cal clients. Interns are required and must maintain clinical files, provide EPSDT documentation, and fill out various agency contract statistics. EPSDT documentation requires maintaining charts that follow county requirements which include the development and implementation of initial assessments, treatment plans, and progress reports within a scheduled time period. They will learn and develop clinical review skills for Medi-Cal documentation purposes. CLINICAL CONTINUITY: Regarding clinical client hours, to maximize the amount of time that clients and their families in the schools can benefit from therapy services, interns are expected to take time off when school is not in session or they take long weekends. Most of the referrals in the clinic are children and their families. These clients can often only come to therapy appointments late afternoon and evenings. To meet these out-patient appointment needs, interns work from 2 to 5 evenings a week depending on the number of hours placed in the clinic.Prerequisites
Required/Desired Experience:
While prior experience in our service area is helpful to incoming interns, the emphasis we place on learning allows us to train interns in most facets they will need for this position. Interns should have completed 48 semester/trimester or 72 quarter units of graduate coursework, not including thesis, internship or dissertation. This allows us to obtain a Medi-Cal waiver for the intern to deliver services for 5 years. We desire interns who are interested and willing to learn Trauma-Focused CBT, Community Mental Health systems orientations, and how to conceptualize cases from a Psycho-dynamic and relational perspective. We also value experience providing therapy in various community locations, although it is not required. Our school spectrum of services includes assessment, brief, medium, and long-term therapy, group therapy, and consultation with teachers. We welcome interns who have previously worked with a multidisciplinary team or in a consultation setting, although these are not required also.Brief Description of Requirements:
Interns should have least two years of clinical experience. We value and consider experience in non-clinical settings. Any child experience, clinical or otherwise is considered helpful. We value intern openness and desire to learn. We prefer that students have taken a course in Child Abuse Reporting and laws and ethics. We provide an up-to-date and in-depth training's on both of these topics.Application Procedures
From all applications received we carefully review the application materials, the recommendation letters, and the cover letter. While we ask what clinical experiences and skills each intern may have, we do not require interns to have experience with the services we provide. We provide training for all the services our agency delivers. Experience prior to clinical internship is also considered a transferable skill. For example, having worked with parents in a non-clinical setting could develop skills in working with parents now as a therapist. From our applications, we contact some interns for a preliminary phone interview. After the phone interview we determine which applicants to select for an in-person interview.
Interview Process:
Individual interviews are conducted with one-to-two Pathways staff. Before the interview, interns are asked to read over a few vignettes. During the interview, we ask some questions about the vignettes and we try to get a sense of the interns current clinical thinking. There are so many perspectives about clinical work, and we are only looking for the capacity to think about clinical material (not a specific answer). At the end of the interview, the applicant reads a process note from a clinical session and is asked to write up a brief progress note to give clinical staff a sense of the interns current documentation style. We will train all interns to meet current county documentation standards.What we are looking for:
We are looking for interns with a desire to learn various aspects of serving diverse, and often underserved, populations primarily with children and families. We are not a private practice model, but rather a Community Mental Health model and we are truly looking for interns that want to learn to work within a an urban community.Additional application docs required (if any)
- Other - We only require two letters of recommendation from a prior clinical placement; one of which need to be from a recent clinical supervisor. AFTER CAPIC matching occurs (intern and internship have accepted each other for an internship) the intern will need to request an official transcript be mailed to us so we can apply for the California Medi-Cal waiver.
Other information:
1) Each graduate school has a determined number of internship hours that must be completed, this number can vary considerably. We need to know about these requirements as soon as possible. We are able to make accommodations to fit all California graduate school needs. 2) Determination of clinic or school placement (while we do take the intern’s preference into consideration) is established mainly by the space available at the schools that year and the clinical needs at all sites. Therefore, we cannot guarantee placement until after all school contacts are decided during a particular internship year. 3) Most of the referrals in the clinic are children and their families. These clients can often only come to therapy appointments in the later afternoon and early evening. To meet these out-patient appointment needs, interns often work from 2 to 5 evenings a week depending on the number of hours placed in the clinic and the client's needs.Additional Comments
We enjoy the interview process and find many interns also enjoy this process with us. We use our interview process as an opportunity for interns and our staff to learn about other placements and other models of providing services. As well, there is such a variation in conceptualization of cases, and we find this promotes interesting discussions.- County - Alameda
- Contact Person Title - Clinical Quality Manager
- Contact Person - Selene Fabiano, Ph.D.
- Dir. of Training Title - Clinical Quality Manager
- Dir. of Training - Selene Fabiano, PhD
- Last Updated - 06 November 2020
- Participating in CURRENT Match process - No
- CAPIC Program ID - I-216
- CAPIC Member Since - 1991
- Region - No. Cal
- Statuses approved by CAPIC
- Half-Time 1 Year - No
- Half-Time 2 Years - No
- Full-Time 1 Year - Yes
- CAPIC Internship Types Available:
- Half-Time 1 Year - No
- Half-Time 2 Years - No
- Full-Time 1 Year - Yes
Primary Location
- Executive Director - Julayne Vigil
- 510 - 16th St.
- Oakland, CA 94612
- Phone - (510) 357-5515 x229
- Fax - (510) 357-5515 x229
Secondary Location
- 433 Callan Ave
- San Leandro, CA 94577
- Phone - (510)357-5515
Training/Clinical Services Offered
- Assessment
- Brief
- Consultation
- Crisis
- Family
- Individual
- Long Term
- Outpatient
- Other