Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship Program By Jason Menting, PsyD, Director of Behavioral Health
Every August IHCRC welcomes new pre-doctoral psychology interns to the Behavioral Health department for a one-year internship. Our internship creates a mutually beneficial relationship in which the interns are able to complete the final requirement for their doctoral degree while the community is able to receive services from them that might not otherwise be available. As this is the last step before they earn their degree, they come to us with a great deal of experience in providing both therapy and psychological assessment services. The internship year allows them to refine their already substantial clinical skills. IHCRC is able to offer unique experiences working within an integrated care setting with an underserved community. This not only provides the interns with an opportunity to complete their training, but hopefully allows them to better understand the special privilege of working with Native people and inspires within them the desire to continue to focus on serving communities with fewer available resources throughout their careers. One of the most valuable skills that our interns bring is in the area of psychological assessment. These assessments usually come at significant expense in other agencies due to the timeintensive nature of the process. Our current interns have also worked hard to expand the services offered to medical patients and have been able to provide brief interventions and consultation with medical during most operating hours rather than more sporadically as was done in the past. Community outreach is also an important part of the internship and can include planning for the annual powwow and participation in the Tulsa Indian Community Advisory Team (TICAT). The aim of the internship program at IHCRC is to develop psychologists to work effectively in underserved communities, particularly American Indian communities, and work in integrated care facilities. IHCRC has been fortunate to receive ongoing funding from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) Program to help support their training. Additionally, the internship is part of the Northeastern Oklahoma Psychology Internship Program (NOPIP), an American Psychological Association (APA) accredited consortium, which further helps support the interns’ training. IHCRC has been fortunate to keep interns with us during past years. Our current Director of Behavioral Health, Jason Menting, PsyD and our current Director of Clinical Training, David Bright, PsyD were both interns before joining the staff. We recently had the annual change in interns and asked our outgoing interns to share their experience in the NOPIP program at Indian Health Care Resource Center of Tulsa.
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PROMOTING WELL-BEING
