Internship in Clinical Psychology

Unique and robust interdisciplinary and collaborative psychological training.

Intern Program Admissions

The Internship in Clinical Psychology Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine was established in 1952 and has been continuously APA accredited since 1956*​​. The internship program moved to its new academic home in the Department of Family Medicine in 2012, under the departmental leadership of Chairman Frank Verloin deGruy III, MD, MSFM. 

The CU School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus is home to 85 psychologists who hold faculty appointments in the departments of Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Medicine, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.  The rich training opportunities in the psychology internship program are the result of interdisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborative efforts that include faculty members from the School of Public Health, other CU system institutions, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the National Jewish Health Center.  

A number of clinical volunteer faculty members also contribute to the service, teaching, and scholarly missions of the School of Medicine through their dedication to the psychology internship program.  All psychologists with primary supervisory responsibilities are graduates of APA accredited internships.

The University of Colorado and the Department of Family Medicine (DFM) are dedicated to enriching the educational experience on our campuses by cultivating a climate of inclusiveness, respect, and understanding for everyone. Promoting health equity, diversity, and an inclusive environment are part of our mission and of increasing importance as we seek to attract the best and the brightest to join our team and help us to better serve our patients and our community.

Our Training Program

Goals and Objectives

We offer specialty training that reflects a general commitment to public service psychology for special needs populations who are typically underserved. The program offers exposure to a diverse group of consumers of behavioral and mental health services as well as to a variety of intervention strategies and approaches.

  • Training in health services psychology devoted to underserved clients
  • Development of a professional identity which includes a scholarship-based approach to clinical work
  • Broad range of training experiences through exposure to major specialty and minor focus areas
  • Training in ethics and values appropriate for a doctoral level psychologist
  • Multidisciplinary learning experiences for additional career development
  • 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
  • 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.

Didactics

The Clinical Psychology Internship features an informative and interactive didactic seminar series that are held, live and in-person, on Mondays from 9:00 a.m. to12:00 p.m.

Leadership Development

We aim to nurture the development of interns as “ambassadors” of clinical psychology, to better interface with healthcare providers from other disciplines, and to become leaders in the field. All interns will participate in our "Psychologist as Leader" leadership development mentoring series with Department of Family Medicine core faculty, and complete a project within one of the following three domains:

  • Leadership: Highlight the importance of flexibility, adaptability, learning, and innovation to promote effective psychologist leaders. 
  • Healthcare Policy: Review how healthcare policies influence clinical care processes and how these policies influence behavioral health.
  • Practice Transformation: Provide an overview of how innovative care delivery features are integrated into real-world clinics to improve patient care. 

Meet the Team

Faculty and Key Contributors

Audrey Blakeley Smith PhD

Audrey Blakeley-Smith, PhD

Training Director; Major Rotation Supervisor, JFK Partners

Degree specialty: Clinical Psychology

Postdoctoral fellowship: JFK Partners, University of Colorado

Internship: JFK Partners, University of Colorado

Graduate school: Stony Brook University

Clinical specialty: Developmental Disabilities

Tidbit about yourself: I like to run half marathons, spend time with my family, especially in the mountains, and explore Colorado nature.

Current Interns

Gallo

Kylie Gallo

Mosley

Taliyah Mosley

Perales

Travis Perales

Wilkinson

Ellen Wilkinson

Bradley

Rebecca Bradley

Shaun

Shaun Fossett

Stallsmith

Vanessa Stallsmith

Cervantes

Jasmine Cervantes

AG

Aislin Guajardo

More About Us

The Ancora Imparo Award

This award was established in 2008 to recognize outstanding and inspirational contributions to intern training. Learn more about the incredible contributions made by our team. 

News

HRSA-Story-Thumb

The University of Colorado School of Medicine, Internship in Clinical Psychology is advancing its training efforts thanks to a new grant. Funding for this grant will be from July 2025 through June 2028.

The internship, housed within the Department of Family Medicine, was recently awarded a three year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), to expand training opportunities for interns in the treatment of Opioid Use Disorders (OUD).

Contact:

Audrey Blakeley-Smith, PhD
Training Director
[email protected]

Family Medicine

CU Anschutz

Academic Office One

12631 East 17th Avenue

Box F496

Aurora, CO 80045

303-724-9700

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