• Development of clinical and scholarly skills in an area of practice which meets the needs of underserved populations and is focused in the public sector

• Development of a range of skills pertinent to working with this population (direct treatment, assessment, consultation, psycho-educational, patient advocacy, etc.)

• Development of the ability to relate scholarly psychological theory and research to the clinical work in the trainee’s specialty area and to other areas of interest to the trainee

• Development of ethics, values, and a professional identity which reflect a commitment to that specialty area and to psychology as a whole

• Development of ancillary skills through clinical and scholarly training

• Development of sensitivity to and clinical skills for working with diverse populations (including issues of culture, ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status, physical disability, urban-rural settings, as well as  a diversity of psychological problems)

• Development of productive and collaborative relationships with faculty and fellow trainees which enhance the learning experience and form a basis for collaborative professional work in the future

• Development of the capacity to accurately evaluate one’s strengths and weaknesses as a psychologist and the ability to use this knowledge to guide one’s practice, use of consultation and scholarly resources, and one’s professional development.
  

Each trainee is assigned an advisor, whose role is to provide a continuous focus throughout the internship year on professional-personal development as a psychologist. It is the advisor’s role to assist in planning the intern’s training year experiences and to monitor progress towards the acquisition of competencies and goals. The advisor meets quarterly with the intern to discuss and integrate the evaluations from the rotation supervisors and the intern’s self evaluation. Interns also provide evaluations of their supervisors, coursework, and clinical experiences. Such mutual feedback is based on the maintenance of an open dialogue between members of the faculty and trainees.

Interns generally do not have a significant amount of time or energy to devote to completing the dissertation during the training year. We have found that students who arrive at internship without the worry of a pending dissertation tend to have more satisfying training experiences.