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OVERVIEW: SEQUENCE OF SUPERVISED FIELD EXPERIENCES
Year One: CSP 740 Practicum in the Schools
Practicum is a highly structured and guided introduction to the intersections of home, family, school and community systems (i.e., specific assignments to be orchestrated & completed on-site). In the Fall, trainees develop skills in ecosystemic assessment-intervention (including record reviews, observation, and interview) and counseling. In the Spring, they continue to practice those skills while adding functional behavior assessment, behavior support plans, and behavioral interventions-consultation to their repertoire. Seminars, held at the school, have three purposes: group supervision, introduction to the profession and professional ethics, and structured discussions regarding cultural diversity in the schools.
Year Two: CSP 730 Fieldwork: School Psychology
Fieldwork continues to support trainee development as interventionists while increasing attention to assessment-intervention and special education evaluations. Trainees continue to provide ecosystemic & ecobehavioral (i.e., functional behavior assessment & behavior support plans) assessments-interventions while increasing their repertoire to include academic assessment-intervention & evaluation of psychoeducational processes (Fall), and cognitive assessment-intervention (Spring). Trainees need to be involved in SSTs and/or IEPs. They must contribute to special education evaluations to the limits of their documented competence (i.e., copies of test proficiency rubrics from instructors). Trainees are expected to carry a small counseling (individual or group) caseload while developing their skills in formal special education evaluation and consultation (e.g., instructional, mental health).
Year Three: CSP 752 Practicum in School Psychology
Fall semester begins with a focus on developing skills in integrative cross-battery assessment-evaluation processes and conceptual report writing under the direct supervision of the supervising faculty member (one day per week). Concurrently, trainees becomes familiar with their placement setting, attends SSTs and IEPs, maintains a small counseling caseload, initiates consultative services, and contributes to special education evaluation procedures. When released from direct faculty supervision, trainees add comprehensive and integrative evaluations to their services in placement schools. By Spring semester, trainees are expected to be able to manage a special education evaluation case from referral through IEP. By the end of the year, trainees should demonstrate their skills in providing a multifaceted, comprehensive model of service delivery including psychoeducational evaluations, behavioral assessment, and direct and indirect interventions.
Year Four: CSP 780 Internship: School Psychology
Interns are expected to deliver the full range of services provided by school psychologists, and must include assessment-evaluation, consultation, counseling, and other direct and indirect interventions, under the supervision of a school psychologist. They are expected to fulfill no more than 75% of the load of a beginning school psychologist. Internship is the culminating learning experience in the program; interns are recommended for the internship credential after a conference with the full-time faculty (held in the Spring prior to internship). Typically interns are assigned to one school for the entire year and may engage in rotations at other sites or with special populations. Usually funded by the school district as a credentialed internship position.
Note: To ensure a breadth of experience, trainees must be in different placements and with different supervisors for each of the field experience courses (i.e., CSP 740, CSP 730, CSP 752, CSP 780). It is the candidate's responsibility, in consultation with her/his advisor, to plan and document field experiences that will result in at least a minimum of 200 hours (through fieldwork, practicum, or field-based courses) in a setting other than the primary setting in which field experiences have been taken. When the School Psychology Faculty meet with internship candidates (in the Spring prior to expected internship year), trainees must present documented hours at each setting level. In the rare instance when a candidate has not completed the 200 hours in a setting other than the primary setting, the candidate must fulfill this requirement during the internship year.
The following are common to each of these yearlong experiences:
SUGGESTED READING:
Sweitzer, H. F., & King, M. A. (2004). The successful internship: Transformation and empowerment in experiential learning. (2nd ed). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
[especially chapters 1-4]
WHAT TO CALL YOURSELF?
Sweitzer & King use the term “intern” to refer to the learner in all field-based experiential learning situations. You may also find that school personnel will refer to you as an intern. It is important, however, to present yourself as you are – a student or trainee – until that time that you hold the official internship credential from the State of California. Only then, in our culminating field experience, may you refer to yourself or allow others to refer to you as an intern. And, at that time, the word intern – not psychologist – is the noun because you are not yet a school psychologist!
Examples:
Throughout the first three years of the program, you are a:
School Psychology Trainee
Or
School Psychology Student
Not an Intern (term regulated by California law)
During the culminating field experience, internship, you are a:
School Psychology Intern
Not
Intern School Psychologist
Phases in the Field Experience | Continuum of Field Experiences | Policies and Procedures | Field Experience Evaluation Forms | | Supervisors and Partners
