Developing an Exclusively Affiliated Psychology Internship Consortium: A Novel Approach to Internship Training.

Abstract

There are not enough local internship positions accredited by the American Psychological Association to meet the needs of candidates who want or need to stay close to their academic program. Although some community agencies that offer practicum experiences might also like to offer internships, they lack sufficient resources. Furthermore, changes in the field of psychology call for new approaches to training. This article describes an innovative approach taken by a graduate school of professional psychology in building on an already existing accredited internship site to develop an exclusively affiliated consortium. The development and description of the internship consortium is described, the advantages and disadvantages of the model are discussed, and practical recommendations for other programs considering such an internship are outlined.

The internship supply and demand issue: Graduate student's perspective.

“…However, APAGS's position is that individual graduate programs must consider whether they are putting more than their "fair share" of pressure on the internship market by admitting large class sizes without directly creating or supporting similar growth in the internship market and must take some responsibility for solving the imbalance problem. Little has been written about what existing and new graduate programs are doing to increase the number of internships locally (Cornish, Smith-Acuna, & Nadkarni, 2005) or what they are doing, if anything, to voluntarily limit their admissions to better keep pace with internship training slots. Perhaps even more important, APAGS urges programs to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that their students are receiving quality training experiences so that they can be competitive in the job market.…”

Counseling psychology perspectives on the predoctoral internship supply-demand imbalance: Strategies for problem definition and resolution.

“…Disadvantages included increased competitiveness among students and distress about nonplacement. Issues of insularity regarding schools of though and demographic diversity also seem relevant (Thorp et al, 2005) although Cornish et al (2005) contended that such issues were not a problem.…”

A critical analysis of systemic problems with psychology pre-doctoral internship training: Contributing factors and collaborative solutions.

“…The University of Denver Graduate School of Professional Psychology (GSPP), another NCSPP member, developed an exclusively affiliated Psychology Internship Consortium (Cornish, Smith-Acuna, & Nadkarni, 2005), building on an existing APA-accredited internship program in the University Counseling Center. Expanding this internship program to a consortium added five sites and six additional internship positions.…”