Clinical Training

Note: Practice experiences can vary year-to-year depending on arrangements with various sites. We cannot guarantee that the practice experiences described here will remain the same in upcoming years. Instead, we provide this information in order to illustrate how clinical practice training unfolds across a typical two-year program sequence.

First Year in the Program

All first-year trainees work at the following two placements:

SFSU Community Psychology Clinic:  In this setting, first-year students will work with 2-5 clients at a time. The clients are typically adult individuals, though sometimes trainees also work with couples, families or children. Clients who come to the clinic are either SF State students or from the SF Bay Area community. Clients come to the clinic with a variety of problems and concerns, ranging from life stress to depression and anxiety to interpersonal and relationship problems. Each first year trainee receives one hour per week of individual supervision focused on their Clinic clients and attends weekly case conference meetings. Trainees may also being training on the clinical intake process during the spring semester.

Community-Based Placement. All students will also work two days per week at a community-based placement. This is most often at a non-profit agency that serves youth. Each student receives two hours of group supervision (in a group with 3 to 5 other clinical graduate students) as part of this experience. This group supervision is provided by a licensed supervisor.

 

Second Year in the Program

Second-year placements are applied for during the 2nd semester of the trainee’s first year. These placements are usually based at agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area community; however, some trainees may choose to continue in the SFSU Community Psychology Clinic. The community-based placements are in a variety of settings, and require trainees to work for 20 hours per week. The populations may include children and families, homeless or at-risk adolescents, adults in outpatient clinic settings, or individuals with severe mental illness. Our program has a very strong reputation in the SF Bay Area community for training exceptional clinicians, which makes trainees very competitive for receiving excellent placements in their second year. Most trainees receive their first or second choice for their second year placements. Over the past few years our students have completed their second year placements at (among others):

Berkeley Mental Health
Family Service Agency of Marin
HAPS
Infant Parent Program
Instituto de la Raza
RAMS
SFSU Community Psychology Clinic 
Talk Line
UCSF Alliance Health Project

 

Post Master's Placements

Once students graduate from our program, many work in community mental health settings, whereas others work in private practice internships or go on to complete their post-master's hours by pursuing an additional one or two-year clinical training program.