Fellows who seek to specialize in providing care to our LGBTQ+ patients have the opportunity to work with providers in Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health, Adult Behavioral Health and Family Medicine who have expertise in providing Sexual and Gender Medicine services. Fellows will have the opportunity to provide psychological support to patients with a wide range of gender and sexual diversities including, but not limited to, providing mental health services to our LGBTQ+ patients, gender affirming therapy, partner and family therapy and support groups. Fellows would be trained in completing culturally sensitive diagnostic assessments for gender dysphoria and any co-occurring mental and chemical health conditions. Fellows may have the opportunity to evaluate for surgical readiness and/or to help adolescents and their families obtain the eligibility and readiness criteria as outlined in the WPATH Standards of Care, 8th Edition, for adolescents seeking hormone therapy.
Fellows who seek to specialize in supporting patients who have experienced trauma would be trained to assess and understand the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on an individual, family and community. Fellows would be trained in the basic assessment of trauma symptoms and in diagnostic skills related to trauma diagnoses. The Fellow would become competent in providing psychoeducation on the emotional and behavioral sequelae of trauma and in the use of treatment interventions to support healing, reduction of distress and/or other trauma symptoms, including treatments such as IFS, TF-CBT, ACT, or DBT. The Fellow would participate in a specialty trauma consult group and be asked to attend other didactics/trainings to support their work in trauma. Fellows would also receive education and support on the impact of vicarious trauma to support them in their work.
Fellows interested in sleep medicine will work under the supervision of a licensed psychologist who is a Diplomate in Behavioral Sleep Medicine (DBSM) and will have the opportunity to evaluate and treat adult patients with insomnia using CBT-I, the number one treatment option available. Fellows will also be able to learn how to assess and refer for other sleep disorders and will have built-in consultation available with the sleep providers. (Fellows are strongly recommended to attend the training at U. Penn prior to/at the beginning of this rotation and can accrue supervised hours they may use toward becoming a future diplomate in behavioral sleep medicine.) This is a high-need treatment area and an excellent treatment niche area for psychologists.
Based on the Fellow’s current assessment skills and areas of interest, the Fellow may conduct psychoeducational, neuropsychological, personality, developmental and/or psychosocial assessments for patients in adolescence through to older adulthood. In addition to traditional outpatient psychological assessments, specialized testing experiences may be available through our Adult Mental Health Partial Hospitalization Program and/or Adult Mental Health Inpatient Unit.
On our child/adolescent clinical team we have opportunities for specialized training in therapy and assessment for diverse patient concerns, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma-related diagnoses, adjustment to chronic illness, sexual and gender medicine and partial hospitalization programming. There are opportunities to do comprehensive assessments in our outpatient clinic and partial hospitalization program, as well as to participate in our multidisciplinary assessment clinics (ASD and FASD).
Specialization in ASD could include participation in a multidisciplinary ASD assessment clinic (including medical, behavioral health and rehabilitation clinic providers), providing psychology-only assessments for ASD, and providing consultation visits, individual and/or parent-focused therapy modalities. Previous training on the ADOS-2 is preferred.
Specialization in assessment and treatment of youngsters impacted by prenatal alcohol exposure, could include a minor rotation through our CentraCare FASD multidisciplinary assessment clinic, working with medical, behavioral health and rehabilitation clinic providers to do comprehensive assessments and feedback.
Specialization in health psychology could include a rotation providing outpatient psychotherapy with patients managing chronic illness. Fellows would provide behavioral health care in conjunction with the medical team in support of health and behavior change. Fellows may provide consultation for physicians and other healthcare providers around behavioral or emotional issues related to a patient's medical condition. Fellows will participate in multidisciplinary consultation and staffing meetings with providers from psychology, psychiatry and the medical team.
Fellows interested in Partial Hospitalization programming would have the opportunity to do a rotation at Clara’s House – where we provide needed mental health services for children and teens ages 5 – 18. Post-doc fellows would have the opportunity to engage with a multidisciplinary team in providing comprehensive assessment and treatment interventions using evidence-based practices based on the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) Framework of Blaustein and Kinniburgh. Each member of the multi-disciplinary team contributes to the ‘attunement’ or understanding of the child and caregivers, and a treatment plan is coordinated by a team of specialists that include psychiatrists, advance-practice providers, psychotherapists, psychologists, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, art therapists, recreation therapists, program facilitators, behavioral health technicians and teachers.
Other specialty care experiences in the fellowship may include: Outpatient Assessment, Gender and Sexual Medicine and Trauma-based interventions (TF-CBT, ARC Framework, Internal Family Systems).
Fellows will receive specialized clinical training in primary care behavioral health (PCBH) or health psychology, working with patients with a wide variety of clinical presentations within a collaborative team based environment. Fellows will engage in integrated behavioral health services within primary care or specialty medical clinics. The focus will be on an immediate, flexible format (brief intervention) and close collaboration with the medical providers. The Fellow will see a wide variety of clinical presentations (chemical dependency, severe and persistent mental health, depression, anxiety, smoking cessation, behavior change related to medical conditions). Treatment modalities such as Motivational Interviewing (MI), Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (fACT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindful Self-Compassion, Solution Focused and Trauma care will be emphasized. Fellows will be responsible for up to 7 scheduled patient times a day in addition to warm hand offs and provider to provider consults to support the behavioral health needs of all patients of the clinic. They also may be involved in the education of family medicine residents about behavioral health issues. Fellows will be an integral part of a multidisciplinary team and will have an opportunity to be fully immersed in a PCBH role. In addition, Fellows will have opportunities to do screenings and targeted assessments to support the medical teams (i.e., risk assessments, depression). The Fellow may have opportunities to do comprehensive psychological assessments; candidates interested in psychological testing are encouraged to speak to this interest in their application.
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