1. The student must meet with the internship chairperson well before the start of the final internship semester, to establish a written agreement on the requirements and due dates for various components of the internship portfolio. An application for the Practicum/Internship site must be submitted and signed by all appropriate parties.


2. Before beginning your clinical placement, please review Essential Information for Students and Supervisors. This will be distributed during the Pre-Practicum class.


3. The completed Internship Portfolio will be composed of the following four main sections:

(i) A narrative description of the practicum and internship placement sites (e.g., location, staff composition, services provided, resources, client base etc.)

(ii) A narrative description of supervision received. This section should identify supervisor(s), supervisor’s qualifications and role in the agency, and method(s) of supervision (e.g., individual, group, use of audio, video, co-therapy etc.)

(iii) A narrative description of the administrative activities of the intern (e.g., maintaining clinical files, discharge/termination notes, research activities etc.)

(iv) A narrative description of the range of clinical activities in which the intern was involved, such as assessment (conducting psycho-socials, intake sessions, administration/interpretation of psychological or psycho-social assessment instruments), individual counseling, couples and family counseling, group counseling, psycho-education, and outreach activities.

(v) A summary of the amount of time spent performing each of the clinical activities described in (iv). Include logs in appendices: logs should include number of hours in direct service activities and types of direct service activities (i.e., individual, group, couples or family therapy), types of issues addressed (e.g., mood disorders, adjustment issues, substance misuse), number of hours in supervision and format of supervision (e.g., individual, group etc.), number of hours in observation, training/professional development, and administrative activities.

(vi) An evaluation of the site(s), identifying the strengths and weaknesses in your training experiences.

In this section of your portfolio you will provide an integrative paper that pulls together and applies previous coursework, theoretical and empirical literature, as well as practicum and internship experiences, to describe the evolution of your professional identity, as well as your practice as a counselor-in-training. Throughout your graduate experience you have been exposed to a variety of models of human growth and development, differing theories of change, as well as differing approaches to the counseling process. In this time you have had the opportunity to apply and evaluate the principles and techniques associated with these theories and models in your work with clients. This section of the portfolio gives you the opportunity to integrate and articulate in a scholarly fashion how these experiences have informed your unique and evolving theoretical orientation as well as your practice style. The following sections may be helpful in orienting you to the major components considered necessary for this section. It is essential to incorporate clinical examples of your work as a counselor in this section. In incorporating these examples it is imperative that you alter any identifying information to ensure the protection of client confidentiality.

For sections i, through viii, please provide appropriate theoretical and empirical support for your position.

(i) Outline and discuss your theory of personality – addressing the question what makes people feel, think and behave as they do.

(ii) Outline and discuss what it means to be psychologically healthy.

(iii) Discuss what you believe contributes to psychological distress and the maintenance of distress.

(iv) Discuss what you believe contributes to the alleviation of psychological distress. In this section provide a clear and thoughtful conceptualization and discussion of the counseling process, from initial sessions to termination. Accompany this with appropriate theoretical and empirical literature that both clearly and critically illustrates what informs your approach to clients, as well as your choice of treatment strategies and interventions. Provide case examples to demonstrate your position.

(v) Provide your thoughtful assessment of clinical work as a scientific endeavor. (i.e., involving the gathering and assessment of data, formulation, testing and reformulation of hypotheses based on clinical observation as well as the relevant theoretical and empirical knowledge base, and lastly the selection and modification of intervention strategies based on the former). For this discussion provide a detailed response that illustrates the complexity with which you view this process.

(vi) Discuss your view of the role, value and impact of research or empiricism on clinical practice more generally. In doing so, clearly identify and explicate how your coursework in research design, statistics and your exposure to the empirical base of the profession informs your perception of well-designed and useful research versus research that is ill-designed and problematic. Additionally, please discuss how your view as outlined impacts your professional practice and how you plan to continue to integrate empiricism in your clinical practice beyond your graduate training.

(vii) Provide a critique of your evolving theoretical orientation in terms of its practical application. In this critique please discuss your perception of the practice scope of your clinical competence and skills. In this include a description of the boundaries that define your practice range and the activities or types of clinical work that fall beyond that. Please also describe your plans regarding continued professional development including plans for additional training and continuing education activities.

(viii) Describe how you experienced diversity issues during your training. What relevant issues or dilemmas arose in this regard? How did clients perceive you, especially those with different ethnic, religious, cultural, gender, sexual orientation, and/or age characteristics than you? How did you perceive these differences? What are the ideals and behaviors, if any, that counselors should strive for when working with individuals who differ from their own reference group?

(ix) Comprehensive Reference List

• Resumé/Vitae
• Practicum Logged Hours (as outlined in section A part v)
• Internship Logged Hours (outlined in section A part v)
• Advanced Internship Logged Hours (outlined in section A part v)

Documentation of successful completion of oral exam, consisting of completed Internship Project Form, and Portfolio Approval/Signature Page.

1. Internships will be most useful for students who expect to enter the job market immediately after graduation, and students who have not been employed previously.


2. Most students are not ready to begin an internship until they have finished the coursework necessary for graduation. Thus, all students must have completed all coursework, including resolution of incomplete grades, before beginning the internship.


3. Important prerequisites are Management and Organizational Behavior or Organizational Psychology, Current Issues, Personnel Selection and Appraisal, Organizational Change and Development, and Research Design. To demonstrate readiness for an internship experience, students should earn a grade of B or higher (not B-) in these courses.


4. A demonstration of the 6 competencies will be tracked throughout the student's tenure in the industrial/organizational psychology track master's program at UWF. Students will meet with their advisor at the beginning of each semester. The advisor will keep a file on each student. Included in this file will be the Internship Competency (http://uwf.edu/spbs/track-industrial/iocomp/login.cfm) listing each of the seven competencies and a space specifying how the competency was met. If the competency was met with a course paper, then a copy of that paper will be retained in the file. Only course papers receiving a grade of (B) or better will be acceptable as meeting a competency.
   
   

   Possible means of demonstrating these competencies with the internship option include:

   1. Reflective and integrative paper based at least in part on the internship experience (required)
   2. Proposal prepared for Research Design (see above)
   3. Graded papers from other courses
   4. Documentation from instructors obtained in the course of completing the program (NOT intended to suggest that letters of recommendation be obtained at time of graduation)
   5. Documentation obtained from supervisors at time of practicum, internship, or other activities
   6. Documentation of projects completed as part of internship or practicum experience
   
   

   This file serves the following purposes: 1) it provides feedback regarding the student's readiness for the workforce prior to entering an internship, 2) it ensures that no competencies are left unmet following the internship, and 3) it creates a nearly complete portfolio for students to take with them following graduation.



5. If the placement requires knowledge in a particular field, relevant coursework in that field should also have been completed. For example, interns should have satisfactorily completed Training and Development if their internship deals with training needs assessment or evaluation.


6. A student may not begin an internship if he or she is on academic probation; because internships do not earn letter grades, they cannot pull up a deficient grade point average. The student's academic advisor and the faculty member who is the internship chair/supervisor (if they are two different people) determine a student's readiness for the internship and they must both approve the student's registration for internship credit.


7. Complete the Application for I/O Internship and give three copies to the I/O track coordinator, along with two copies of your resume. A project or research proposal is not necessary at this point. (One copy of your application with resume will be placed in your file, one goes to your advisor, and the third with resume is retained by the Coordinator.)
   
   

    

   Note: This should be done early in the semester before you want to begin your internship, certainly at least six weeks prior to registration.





8. With the assistance of the I/O faculty, begin researching and contacting internship placement sites. Good sources of information are faculty members in Psychology and other departments, other students, community contacts and the local newspaper.


9. In contacting potential internship sites, explain the requirements for an internship: appropriate work, adequate supervision, communication with the faculty supervisor, and provision of an evaluation letter upon completion of the internship.
   
   

    

   Note: Because approval of the placement is a requirement to begin the internship, you should not make a commitment to an organization until this approval has been obtained. In our experience, this is seldom a problem.






10. In the I/O track, ultimately students are responsible for securing their own internship placements although the faculty will provide as much help as they can.


11. While you are making arrangements for an internship placement, you should also be setting up your internship committee. In consultation with your advisor, you will identify faculty who are knowledgeable about aspects of the work you will be doing during your internship.


12. The Chair of your committee and one other member must be from the Psychology faculty. You may choose a third member who may be in Psychology or another Department.


13. Prior to or early in your internship, you will discuss your choice of internship option with your committee. This plan should be approved by the faculty members of your internship committee before you begin work on the internship.
    
    Generally interns develop their internship paper in consultation with their Committee Chair. Follow the procedure recommended by your Chair for cycling draft materials through your committee for revisions. Your committee members will generally need about two weeks to read your portfolio and paper and provide feedback about any revisions that will be necessary. When your committee agrees that the material is satisfactory, your final approval meeting can be scheduled.
    
    You should give a final copy of your complete portfolio to each committee member at least two weeks before your final meeting is scheduled. At this time you will meet with your committee to discuss the paper, portfolio, and your internship experience. The committee will discuss the portfolio and internship paper and either approve it or recommend further revisions. When the portfolio is approved, this is documented by signatures on the Internship Project Form which becomes part of your file. The final, approved bound version of your portfolio and paper then are submitted to SPBS Director for review and approval. Internship portfolios are kept in SPBS office and you may want to review some of them for ideas about content and style.
    
    Because many internship papers are submitted each semester, SPBS requires that they be submitted to SPBS Director no later than two weeks prior to the last day of class in the semester when the student will graduate. Therefore your preliminary version must be completed well before that time to allow for review and revision by your committee chair and members. For the exact due date for the internship paper, see the schedule posted at the beginning of each academic year. Some students are able to complete their internship papers and portfolios while they are doing their internships, but it is more common for students to complete this requirement and graduate the semester following the internship. Students must continue to register for at least one hour of internship credit every semester until the final portfolio and paper are submitted. Therefore we strongly recommend that you NOT register for all six required internship hours during the same semester on the assumption that you will finish. This time pressure is likely to prevent you from doing your best work, and places undue pressure on your committee members at the end of the semester when they are most busy with other work.


14. Following the 600 hours of internship, the student must also be evaluated by their field supervisor using the Internship Evaluation Form.

Following completion of 600 hours of internship work, students will present their internship committee members with an internship paper and give a formal presentation about their internships in a public forum to students and faculty who wish to attend. All students will be required to attend at least 2 internship presentations prior to their own internship. The presentation is to be arranged and advertised at least 2 weeks prior to the scheduled time. When possible, the presentation will be scheduled to occur during the "Current Issues in Industrial/Organizational Psychology" course. Presentations will be presented in a professional manner using appropriate medium of the student's choice (e.g., slides, transparencies, computers). Presentations are expected to last between 45 minutes and one hour and will consist of the following:

1. Description of the student's internship search process
2. Description of the student's job training if provided by internship organization
3. Description of tasks performed by the student
4. Description of how the student's coursework aided their work performance
5. Student's own critique of internship experience
6. Public question and answer period

Immediately following the presentation, the students will meet privately with their internship committee to discuss the presentation. At this time the committee will vote on whether the student's work was sufficient to graduate or discuss deficiencies that must be addressed.