Interns engage in a wide variety of service activities that can be applied to many career directions. The intern becomes an important part of our agency and joins Watson's Psychological Services department staff of 7 psychologists and 77 employees as part of our comprehensive services teams. Moreover, the education and training components of the internship are emphasized and highly valued by the psychology staff and trainees. Interns participate in weekly individual supervision (a minimum of 2 hours), group supervision (2 hours), professional development seminars that focus on training in evidenced-based treatments well as assessment and diagnostic issues (2.5 hours) and hour-long case conferences or journal reading review meetings. As part of their training, interns receive specific exposure in their orientation to the internship and in on-going individual and group supervision to broad ethical concerns in clinical practice as well as to specific risk management issues such as assessment of persons dangerous to self or others, duty to warn, and commitment. While all interns have exposure to the 3 rotations described below, there are opportunities to select special emphasis areas within the internship, including Autism, Neuropsychology, and Child/Adolescent Behavioral/Emotional disorders (general track).

 The major training rotation is the Outpatient Services Unit (OSU), where interns receive supervised experience in assessment, diagnosis and intervention with special needs children and adolescents and their families. In the OSU, interns conduct diagnostic interviews with the clients (as able) and their families, perform functional behavioral analysis, and conduct psychological testing, with an emphasis on both neuropsychological issues (including dyslexia, speech and language disorders, learning disabilities, traumatic brain injuries and visual perceptual disorders) and psychological issues (including depression, anxiety, psychosis and ADHD.) Testing emphasizes neuropsychological batteries and objective tests, but includes projective techniques as appropriate. Treatment opportunities include a broad range of evidence-based services with children and adolescents including social skills training groups (friendship development, social stories, comic strip conversations, picture exchange communication system), applied behavioral analysis, cognitive behavioral therapy and emotional modulations, cognitive restructuring, didactic intervention, relaxation for children with special needs, systematic desensitization, pay-based intervention and psycho-educational interventions. Interns also participate in individual, couples or family interventions with the clients' families (parents, siblings and other caregivers or support systems.)

Interns may also rotate through the Partial Hospitalization and Training and Consultation Services.  The psychiatric partial day hospital programis operated through the Friendship Academy, a member of the Watson Institute's family of schools. Through the partial day hospital, interns have the opportunity to work with children and adolescents with a broad range of behavioral and emotional disorders. In addition to ongoing evaluation of students' academic and social functioning, interns may work with students in a structured behavior management program, helping to increase students' abilities to accept responsibility, follow rules and work cooperatively with others. They will also have the opportunity to provide individual, group and family therapy from primarily cognitive-behavioral and multi-systemic perspectives.  This is a minor rotation of the internship, with the intern on site for 8 hours per week.   Interns in this rotation are supervised by a licensed psychologist who is on site for the period of time that the intern is on site (approximately 8 hours per week). Additional supervision may be provided by licensed mental health providers from other disciplines (e.g. psychiatry, social work) who are present full time at the location.

As part of the internship the interns also gain experience in Training and Consultation Services, where interns join professionals from a multidisciplinary staff (education, social work, psychology) in developing and presenting a variety of programs tailored for educatino/school based programs, mental health programs, or as part of home based services.  Training is conducted for both professional and lay audiences through in-service training and workshops.   Services are tailored to meet the specific needs of the audience and may include autism intervention, behavior management, inclusion, curriculum adaptation, IEPs, curriculum development, transition planning, school to work transition planning, assessment methods, social skills facilitation as well as other requested services.

While not a required part of the internship, opportunities are available to work with internship faculty on research projects at the Watson Institute.