PRACTICUM

A critical component of doctoral practicum training at Forest Institute is quality supervised training experience. Practicum is a vital element of the master and doctoral degrees because it provides structured, meaningful, “hands-on” experience in actual clinical settings. These experiences are sequenced and aligned with coursework so that practicum rotations reinforce and integrate the theoretical, practical, and ethical content being learned in the classroom.

Coursework required for beginning the practicum sequence facilitates development of entry-level knowledge, skills and attitudes; while subsequent courses are designed to sharpen and expand on students' expertise and experience in areas addressed in the remaining practica rotations.

As the student progresses through the course work and associated practica, an increasingly higher level of professionalism, patient care, and performance is developed. The student progressively assumes greater responsibility for client care, case management, presenting cases in staff or multidisciplinary meetings, and other associated duties/requirements of the individual practicum site. The student also begins to independently choose assessment tools, formulate interventions, delineate the goals and objective of the chosen interventions, predict the expected outcome, and explain the rationale for the chosen procedures, interactions, and/or interventions used. Skills necessary to judge the effectiveness of an intervention, determine whether the chosen assessment/treatment regimen provided the necessary information needed to answer the referral question, and determine if an alternative approach is necessary are refined throughout the final practicum rotations in the sequence.

Practicum training is currently provided primarily in the Murney Clinic of Forest Institute. Dedicated to providing low-
cost mental health services to the underserved populations of the southwest Missouri area, the Clinic functions as a community mental health center with a basic mission of training students. The student's first practicum rotations are completed in the Clinic under the supervision of faculty practitioners. Supervision in this setting occurs during intensive six-hour “blocks” in which small groups of six to eight students interact with a faculty mentor and participate in co-therapy and live observation. More advanced students have access to more than 30 external sites that offer even greater diversity of experiences. These settings include a federal medical center, homeless shelter, schools, county
jail, neuro/rehabilitation center, rural mental health clinics, substance abuse clinics, and other agencies.

Oversight for practicum training is provided through the Clinical Training Department. A full time Practicum Coordinator serves as a training advisor for students and arranges experiences that match the student's areas of interest and level of competency. The Practicum Coordinator also serves as a liaison with external sites and adjunct supervisors to ensure quality in all training environments.