Postdoctoral Fellowships in Clinical Psychology
Virginia Treatment Center for Children

     Virginia Treatment Center for Children (VTCC) is the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. VTCC provides acute and residential psychiatric inpatient programs, a day treatment program, and outpatient services for children, adolescents and their families. VTCC is well known within the field for its ability to successfully treat complex emotional and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents. VTCC also offers consultation services to local mental health centers, detention centers and pediatric clinics. In addition to clinical services, the center reaches out to provide information to Virginia’s mental health system and policy makers through training, technical assistance and consultation services as well as research and program evaluation activities.

     In addition to an APA-approved predoctoral internship, postdoctoral fellowships have been in place at VTCC for over a decade. There are currently two fully funded fellowship positions. Each fellowship position is a one-year experience designed to promote the professional development of child clinical psychologists. The training year provides fellows with intensive clinical and supervisory experiences across the continuum of mental health services for children, adolescents and families.

     Fellows receive two hours of weekly supervision from psychology faculty members. These supervision sessions focus not only on fine-tuning clinical skills in working with children, adolescents and their families, but also on ‘supervision of supervision’ issues and professional identity and development. Fellows provide two hours of supervision to pre-doctoral interns in clinical psychology – one hour of assessment supervision and one hour of therapy supervision.

Specific responsibilities for the postdoctoral fellowship include the following:

1. Provides therapeutic services to children and adolescents in residential treatment or acute services. These services include individual therapy, family therapy, case management, and participation in weekly team meetings and monthly treatment plan review meetings. Responsibilities on the Acute inpatient psychiatry service include conducting comprehensive psychological evaluations of youth referred to the hospital for 10-day evaluations.

2. Provides outpatient services through VTCC Outpatient Clinic, seeing 3-4 patients per week.

3. Coordinates psychological assessment services. This involves assigning assessment cases to psychology trainees, completing psychological assessments when needed, and managing and ordering testing materials.

4. Provides on-call coverage (approximately 5 weekends per year).

5. Provides supervision to a psychology intern or practicum student for therapy cases (one hour/week).

6. Provides supervision to a psychology intern or practicum student for psychological assessments (one hour/week).

7. Receives two hours of weekly supervision from faculty members.

8. Serves as supervisor of Family Clinic twice a month. Coordinates with psychology faculty supervisors.

9. Participates in one elective clinical experience for at least 6 months of the year.

10. Develops and participates in one scholarly activity during the year (e.g. evaluation of a clinical intervention; participation in one of the ongoing projects within VTCC; extension of dissertation; literature review and presentation of results; training to hospital staff, etc.)

11. Attends Psychiatry Department Grand Rounds.

12. Participates in weekly Psychology faculty meetings.

     Postdoctoral Fellows receive an annual stipend of $28,000 and supervision hours toward licensure. Benefits include generous leave time and options for health and dental insurance.  Start is flexible (July through September).

     Send letter of interest, names of three clinical references, and Curriculum Vitae to:

William Fahey, Ph.D.
Director of Psychology Training
Virginia Treatment Center for Children
MCV Box  980489
Richmond, VA 23298-0489.

     For further information contact Dr. Fahey via e-mail at wfahey@mcvh-vcu.edu or by phone, 804-828-3266.

     Deadline for applications is February 15.

     Note: Please review VTCC’s internship brochure at www.vcuhealth.org/vtcc for detailed information about the Virginia Treatment Center for Children, the psychology training program, and the psychology faculty. The clinical rotations and opportunities described in this brochure are the ones available to the Postdoctoral Fellows throughout their training year.

 10/10/2007