PRACTICUM

Prior to beginning direct client contact, students must attend meetings, a step which introduces them to clinic procedures and practices; acquaints them with clinical forms and case management, and focuses on appropriate professional processes. Following this, the first clinical experience is generally begun in the student's second or third semester. This consists of clinical work at the department's Family Therapy Clinic and limited involvement in a program sponsored off-campus setting.

Students are expected to become involved in clinical activities. This experience will involve learning clinical practices, observing live sessions, treating individual clients, being a therapist with supervised visits, and doing assessments and Guardian Ad Litem activities as a part of the department's involvement with the Children's Probate Court. As the semester progresses, students will be assigned an individual, couple, or family case that they will carry to completion. To insure meeting clinical requirements, students should expect to devote a minimum of 10-12 hours per week, five hours of which must be SCSU clinic hours.  In addition to direct client contact, the student will have one hour of group supervision and one hour of individual supervision each week, and will have structured assignments for observation of live therapy sessions. An extensive evaluation will be conducted by the supervisor prior to the student's registering for the internship.