Position Overview:
As a member of the leadership team of Mental Health and Counseling (MH&C) Services, the Clinical Training Program Director is responsible for coordinating the Psychology Trainee (predoctoral and postdoctoral) Program. The position provides direct clinical services to our undergraduate and graduate student population, including urgent care and crisis intervention, psychological evaluations, time-limited individual and group psychotherapeutic treatment, on-call services, campus liaison, outreach, mental health education, and community referral services.
Additionally, this role provides administrative and clinical oversight to the psychology predoctoral and postdoctoral trainee program. The Clinical Training Program Director advertises, recruits, retains, mentors, and regularly evaluates the trainees. They create a program where weekly supervision is provided for the trainees in dyadic, group, and seminar formats. Additionally, the Clinical Training Program Director recruits and engages staff members at SMH&C to provide supervision, mentorship, and seminar instruction for the trainees.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities*
- Serves as a mentor/developmental advisor and/or training resource to trainees as well as peers, providing an example with regard to the quality of work and adhering to the ethical codes of the American Psychological Association.
- Serves as one of the staff experts in collegiate mental health trends, standards, assessments, accrediting bodies, and best practices (CCMH, CCAPS, IACS, etc.)
- Provides advice and counsel to peers regarding best practices and expertise in how access functions relate to other counseling activities.
- Clarifies problems; adapts and modifies established approaches, including teaching others how to think through alternatives and choices.
- Establishes and leads project timelines or short-term goals.
- Develops, designs, and implements a training seminar curriculum, involving review of clinical material and journal articles and related scholarship, evaluation of Trainee progress, and continually improving training program elements.
- Explores program expansion and the advantages and disadvantages of program accreditation (e.g., Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers) as appropriate.
- Engages in campus outreach and community education related to mental health issues.
- Serves as a mental health consultant to other university partners and stakeholders and as a community referral resource for students.
- Directly supervises and oversees supervision for all predoctoral and Postdoctoral fellows.
- Participates in select MIT Health, Campus Life, and University committees, as assigned by the Chief of Student Mental Health & Counseling Services.
- Develops and modifies policies and guidelines related to the Trainee Program.
- It focuses on before-and-after measurements, looking across the work performed by all SMH&C clinicians to determine the success rate and potential gaps for the service as a whole.
- Performs data analysis using reports either extracted by self or by the report writing team using tools within the Cerner system as well as other appropriate data mining and data analytical tools.
- Responds to ad hoc queries in response to leadership requests, acting as a primary thought partner to issues that are often challenging and require analysis to understand and resolve. Ensure that the resulting decision information reflects what the requestor is seeking.
- Continually reviews and validates existing psychology trainee clinical notes and presentations. Includes key stakeholders in all decisions to maintain continual buy-in and ownership.
- Provides mental health screening and initial assessments, both in person and via telephone, of the student, including the assessment of their needs and strengths in their current situation and environment, as well as their functional level. Develops treatment plans with appropriate and competent interventions.
- Responsible for assessment and intervention in crisis situations that may involve issues of suicidal intent and behavior, homicidal intent, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, family violence, and elder or child abuse.
- Provides treatment, therapy, psycho-education, and/or counseling utilizing individual or group modalities.
- Aids the team in understanding and integrating the significance of psychosocial factors in relation to patient's psychiatric challenges, treatment, and recovery. Identifies psychosocial issues that may impede progress. Makes recommendations to the team regarding care and care management.
- Partners with the CARE Team to promote student and/or family level of understanding in order to make informed decisions.
- Provides care in an interpersonally and culturally sensitive manner.
- Provides outreach, case finding/screening for high-risk issues that may impact students' progress, participation in plans, discharge, or ability to utilize resources.
- All other duties as assigned.
Minimum Required Education and Experience:
- Doctorate in clinical or counseling psychology from an American Psychological Association (APA)-approved doctoral program.
- Completion of APA-approved clinical internship or equivalent.
- Massachusetts licensure or license eligible.
- A minimum of 5 years of supervised clinical internship/fellowships.
- Advanced understanding of the full range of developmental and mental health challenges affecting late adolescents and young adults.
- Expertise in collegiate mental health trends, standards, assessments, accrediting bodies, and best practices (CCMH, CCAPS, IACS, etc.)
- Mastery of multiple models of brief integrative and psychodynamic psychotherapies, and evidence-based mental health care.
- Evidence of experience in working with severe and persistent mental illness, patients, and/or on a psychiatric inpatient unit, or the functional equivalent.
- Demonstrated excellence in managing psychological emergencies during office hours and after-hours.
- Evidence of effective collaborations with a diverse group of psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists, as well as productive collaborations with multiple stakeholders.
- Evidence of the provision of culturally informed mental health care, and attunement to the manifestations of psychological problems across different cultural backgrounds, identity configurations, and genders.
- Knowledge of Massachusetts’s licensure standards and federal regulations (e.g., HIPAA, FERPA) pertaining to health care organizations (including clinical records, patient privacy and confidentiality, treatment of minors) as well as relevant accreditation standards (e.g., Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care).
- Computer skills and knowledge of general office programs, spreadsheet programs, database programs, and presentation programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).