Internship Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology

Course goals

Course objectives
The objective of the internship is to prepare students to work as a clinical child and adolescent psychologist in a professional field. Students explore a professional field for child and adolescent psychologists, gain knowledge and insights, train skills and develop a professional attitude that starting child and adolescent psychologists in that professional field are expected to have.


After completing the internship, students will:

• be familiar with a professional field, specifically the position of an academically trained child and adolescent psychologist.
• be able to demonstrate the ability to apply theoretical knowledge into practice in the professional field.
• have acquired (academic) skills and apply them in clinical practice.
• have developed a professional and academic attitude.
• be competent to reflect on the internship and their academic and professional experience.

Relation between assessment and objective         
The assessment of the internship is based on the knowledge, insights and skills that have been gained and the professional attitude that has been developed during the internship. These learning objectives will be translated into internship objectives formulated by the student and adapted to the specific professional field. The academic supervisor and external supervisor need to approve the internship objectives formulated by the student. The internship objectives will be discussed in two evaluations with the master student, the external supervisor and the academic supervisor. Moreover, the student writes an internship report and will do other assignments relevant to the internship as part of the internship group sessions at the University. The academic supervisor determines the final grade.
 

Content

Content
In a clinical internship students will acquire and practice clinical skills and knowledge. Students, for example, actively participate in the diagnostic assessment (intake, test administration, score and interpret test results, report to clients), intervention, and coaching of children and adolescents with mental health, behavioral, or learning problems.
 
Within the area of mental healthcare, internships can take place in institutions for youth services, childcare centers (for children with mental impairments), hospitals and clinics for child and adolescent psychiatry. Clinical internships within the area of education could include school advisory or guidance services, special education schools or national pedagogic centers. Institutions can be oriented towards the problems of individual children (as emerging through education), as well as towards the broader or systematic problems of groups of students and educational institutions as a whole.

In principle, this internship can be arranged in such a way that it fulfils the requirements set by the Dutch Association of Psychologist (NIP) for the basic registration in psychodiagnostics (BAPD). However, the BAPD is not a required component of the Master's degree programme. Students who would like to obtain the BAPD are expected to make time available outside the study programme (e.g., for writing the required BAPD reports). Moreover, this internship prepares students to follow post-academic education in The Netherlands as a health psychologist (in Dutch: GZ-psycholoog), school psychologist and the registration process for NIP Child- and Youth Psychologist. After completing the programme, students can also register in SKJ (in Dutch: Stichting Kwaliteitsregister Jeugd).

Virtually all Dutch institutions that offer clinical child and adolescent internships require interns to have adequate proficiency in Dutch (Dutch children are often only fluent in Dutch). Students who do not master the Dutch language sufficiently, may do a Clinical Internship abroad or a Clinical internship in the Netherlands in an institution/school where English is the main language.

Students are responsible for arranging their internship themselves. They are strongly encouraged to do so before the master programme starts (i.e., before September). Please contact internshipCCAP@uu.nl for more information about procedures and internship requirements.