Educational Activities

Initial Training: Interns will receive in-depth training covering a breadth of topics related to each internship rotation during the first two weeks of the internship year. The initial training will include a combination of didactic and experiential learning opportunities to provide a foundational level of knowledge and experience with the theories and practices that drive the clinical model of service delivery throughout the internship. Training will be provided by the internship supervisors, as well as core members of the Internship Training Committee.

Supervision: Rotation supervisors provide at least three hours per week of formal supervision. There will also be a weekly one-hour group supervision for a total of four supervision hours/week.

Core didactics: The core didactic series consists of one 90-minute weekly seminar focused on a variety of general psychotherapy, assessment, and consultation topics and one 60-minute weekly seminar that rotates between child, neuropsychology, counseling psychology, and professional development focused topics.  Topics focused on diversity, race, and cultural competency will be integrated into all didactics, and also covered in seminars focused on these areas. 

Supervision seminar: There will be a monthly seminar series focused on providing clinical supervision, which will include both didactic and experiential learning.

Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds: This monthly rounds series features nationally/internationally recognized experts in behavioral health.

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds: This monthly rounds series features nationally/internationally recognized experts in pediatric behavioral health. Required only for Child/Development Disabilities Track intern

Process group: There will be a monthly process group facilitated by two faculty members from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia focused on discussion of personal identity and how this impacts one’s experience as a clinician as well as the role it plays when working with different clinical populations.

Track and rotation didactics: Each track and many rotations will also offer specific didactic experiences for interns who are on that rotation.

Neuropsychology Track Didactics: In addition to rotation specific didactic training and consensus conferences noted within the rotations, there is a dedicated Neuropsychology Seminar Series on Monday afternoons. This seminar series is a joint effort between neuropsychologists in the Penn Neurology Department, the Philadelphia VAMC, Bancroft NeuroRehabilitation and Temple University and includes neuropsychology-relevant topics 2x per month and fact-finding and professional development discussions 1x per month. The neuropsychology division meets weekly in a hybrid format, on Friday afternoons, for an informal case conference with faculty and trainees. Additionally, there are formal neuropsychology division case presentations every other month, led by a neuropsychology division trainee, including externs, interns, and postdoctoral fellows.

Student Health and Counseling Track Didactics: Training seminars include Professional Topics, Group Therapy, and the Social Identity Exploration/Social Justice series, which highlights self-knowledge, social identities, themes of power, privilege and oppression, and the role of psychologist as advocate. Interns provide individual supervision to psychology externs and have weekly supervision of supervision. 

Evidence-based training workshops: There may be opportunities to participate in training workshops lasting from 1-3 days on topics such as Prolonged Exposure, Motivational Interviewing, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia.

In addition, there are a number of other seminars, didactics, talks offered across the university available to interns.