Mission Statement
The mission of the Postdoctoral Psychology
Fellowship Program at the Marshfield Clinic Health System is to promote
the development of advanced skills for professional psychologists in the areas
of child clinical and pediatric psychology. This development occurs through the fellow's participation in
a structured, intensive training program that involves direct and indirect
supervision, didactic seminars, case conferences, and a planned clinical case
load involving varying practice settings, presenting problems, clinical tasks and
clientele.
Our program is committed to applying contemporary models in training. Our faculty incorporates information from a variety of sources including APPIC and ACGME conferences, professional list serves, websites (APA, APPIC, ACGME, National Register, ABPP) and literature reviews. Core documents for our program include: Competency Benchmarks: A Model for Understanding and Measuring Competence in Professional Psychology Across Training Levels; Competency Assessment Toolkit for Professional Psychology; Recommendations for Training in Pediatric Psychology: Defining Core Competencies Across Training Levels; Application of the Competency Cube Model to Clinical Child Psychology; Competency Benchmarks: Practical Steps Toward a Culture of Competence; Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice. We continue to monitor the field for the further application of the competency model to training.
The program builds upon the fellow's basic clinical skills and literature review skills developed in graduate school and on internship. Based on this foundation, the fellowship program provides a graduated level of clinical experiences and intensive individual supervision. Fellows progress to increasing levels of independent functioning based upon close supervision of cases and directed review of the relevant literature and other training materials. Each fellow accepted into the program is supported to master the experiences of the program and graduate.
The fellowship program is a small program consisting of psychologists who are dedicated to teaching as part of their clinical careers. They find teaching to be a mutual learning process in which fellow and supervisor are enriched. This is well demonstrated in the supportive, collegial mentoring that is provided to each fellow.
Program Goals
The goals indicated below are derived from the Mission Statement and Philosophy of Training:
The fellowship will assist the fellow in becoming an accomplished clinician capable of practicing at an advanced level independently in a variety of clinical settings.
The fellowship will involve postdoctoral fellows in teaching and consultation activities to facilitate pursuit of consultant, and educator roles in addition to their roles as therapists and diagnosticians.
The fellowship will provide a structured sequence of seminars and training activities in support to the above goals.
The fellowship will provide feedback and guidance to each fellow regarding their progress via twice per week supervision with their primary supervisor, weekly supervision with their clinical supervisor, monthly status of training meetings with the Director of Training, and formative feedback on performance on the observable
practice activities (OPAs), summative feedback via quarterly formal OPA
evaluations and semi-annual feedback on competencies performance from the Clinical
Competency Committee.
The fellowship will remain contemporary with clinical and professional practice standards via its training committee members maintaining active involvement in continuing education in the areas relevant to fellowship training.
The fellowship will tailor training to each fellow's specific needs and interests as reflected in the development of the IFP at the beginning of training.
- The fellowship will assist postdoctoral fellows in completing state licensing tasks so that they become licensed during or at the conclusion of fellowship.
The fellowship program will support and mentor fellows in their selection, completion and dissemination of a research/scholarly activity if they are completing the two-year fellowship.
Faculty will pursue the Mission Statement and
the above goals with each fellow in a respectful and non-exploitative manner
which protects the civil and personal rights of the fellow as is the policy and
expectation for treatment of all staff at the Marshfield Clinic Health
System.
Competencies
We teach, model, reinforce, evaluate and, when necessary, remediate elements of each of the following core competencies: professionalism; reflective practice/self-care; relationships; individual and cultural diversity; ethical, legal standards and policy; interdisciplinary systems; assessment; intervention; consultation; management; and, advocacy. Each training site has a specific set of Observable Professional Activities (OPAs), linked to the core competencies, upon which the fellow is evaluated by the attending faculty member. Fellows are expected to reach performance on each OPA at the Entrusted Professional Activity (EPA) level, allowing for performance of that OPA at Supervision Level 4-Oversight (per ACGME standards Oversight means the supervising psychologist is available to provide review of procedures/encounters with feedback provided after care). The overall goal is for the fellow to reach the EPA level on all the OPAs for that service so they can function in a semiautonomous manner and be ready to lead a similar service at an advanced level upon graduation.
