Internship Program

CHAC enjoys an outstanding reputation for quality intern training in the San Francisco Bay area. Consequently, CHAC is a placement of choice for many colleges and universities for their students who are completing their MFT or Ph.D. licensing requirements. Each year, over 50 graduate students are accepted into CHAC’s  Training Program as MFT interns or doctoral practicum or internship students.   CHAC is a CAPIC internship site.

Training involves both school-based and in-agency supervised counseling and psychotherapy.  School-based experience is at elementary, middle, and high schools.  In-agency experience encompasses individual, group, couples, and family therapy. The interns and practicum students  represent all ages and cultural backgrounds and are chosen for their competence, compassion, and integrity. They work at the CHAC counseling center in Mountain View, and are assigned to one of the 23 local schools CHAC serves.

CHAC’s school services extend to 23 school campuses at which supervisees and some staff counsel youth individually and in groups, provide prevention services, conflict resolution classes, parenting classes, crisis counseling, and other related services.  CHAC attempts to integrate evidenced-based practices into its work whereever possible, and is engaged in an ongoing program of research and program evaluation in order to document and improve efficacy.

CHAC also provides other supportive modalities, including various educational opportunities (cf. program page). CHAC serves a multi–cultural population. CHAC is dedicated to providing a high level of treatment to our clients as well as superior training and varied experience for our supervisees.

CHAC is staffed by seventeen licensed or credentialed professionals, including PhD. Psychologists, Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTS), CAADAC and ATR credentialed staff, which direct and supervise the agency’s many programs.

In 2005-2006, CHAC’s approximately fifty supervisees, at various stages in their  training careers provided over 23,870 hours of counseling and related services for the community. 

Supervision and Training

The supervision and training opportunities for supervisees are as follows:

• Weekly individual face–to–face supervision from a licensed Clinical Supervisor
  
• Weekly group supervision from a licensed Clinical Supervisor
  
• An emphasis on the use of video, audio, and live supervision
  
• Supervision conducted behind one–way–mirror with an opportunity for real–time intervention
  
• Training consist of two–hour weekly sessions including such topics as first interviews with children and first contact with parents, child abuse and when to report, psychopharmacology, art therapy, family therapy, couples counseling, trainings on alcohol and drug addiction/abuse, multi–cultural diversity trainings, ADD/ADHD, eating disorders, crisis counseling, and many more subjects develop over the months of September to early June. In addition, advanced supervisees may elect to enroll in more in–depth trainings extending from 10–12 weeks to a full year or longer. Recent topics have included counter–transference, gestalt therapy theory and practice, psychological testing and narrative therapy. 
  

Combined Research/Clinical Practicum

Most students will spend two days a week in their school placements, and in addition, see adult individuals, couples or families in the clinic..  For qualified doctoral-level students with research interests, we have created a new practicum or internship track.   We are making available one or two slots each year in which the student will spend one day in a school, and work on one of our research programs, or possibly a student-generated piece of research, on the second day. Thus, students will get a solid clinical experience with the appropriate supervision, but in addition, will have the opportunity to explore research methodology in real-life clinical settings in collaboration with Dr. Kiritz and other students. Please contact Dr. Kiritz for details, and see "Research Programs" below.  

Research Programs

CHAC maintains consistent and evolving program evaluation efforts. Program evaluation has many facets at CHAC, including pre- and post-tests of various CHAC interventions using both standardized and proprietary CHAC instruments to determine efficacy of treatments, measure changes in developmental assets, assess alliance and outcome of psychotherapy and counseling sessions, evaluate teacher ratings of motivation and classroom behavior. In addition, CHAC has begun several long-term research projects which can involve interns and trainees with research backgrounds in ongoing research leading to publication.

One of the projects in which CHAC staff will collaborate with other agencies including the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office involves the assessment of Parent Project programs run through CHAC and a number of other agencies statewide. We will be gathering data from parents and schools, probation departments and police departments in an attempt to document the effectiveness of this manualized treatment for parents of adolescents with serious behavioral problems. The project will use standardized instruments, experiment controls, and other means in order to provide solid data for analysis.

A second project concerns ADHD, a serious disorder that if untreated leads in many cases to aggression, academic underachievement, rejection by peers, and other negative outcomes. Our project aims to add to the knowledge of the impact of early identification of ADHD, and proper treatments, to include appropriate training of parents in the types of parenting styles that are most effective in reducing the negative consequences of ADHD.

Both of these are multi-year research programs and will allow for participation by qualified students in various aspects of the research. 

CHAC Orientation

CHAC’s orientation is the following...

• CHAC’s professional staff is highly experienced and possesses skills and advanced training in many of the modalities of therapy, including psychodynamic approaches, family systems approaches, cognitive–behavioral therapy, brief therapy, art therapy, gestalt therapy etc, However, as an agency and a training center CHAC does not subscribe to one overriding theoretical orientation. It is possible for supervisees to be exposed to a variety of clinical supervisors and professional staff, each of whom has a strong track record in his or her own approach, and thus learn varying ways of engaging in the tasks of therapy.  We attempt to integrate evidence-based practices into our work whenever possible.
  
• CHAC is also actively involved in a research and assessment program that includes the use of the CHAC–derived instruments for measuring changes in levels of Developmental Assets formulated by the Search Institute of Minnesota. The Asset Model is gaining wide acceptance as a means of determining risk factors in youth and possibly the adult populations.
  
• We also rate client–therapist rapport and outcome of therapy for many of the sessions conducted in–house.
  
• We collect data on risk–taking behavior as it changes during the course of therapy.
  
• We have begun to measure the effects of CHAC counseling on classroom behavior including attendance, attention, conduct, social skills, academic motivation, and academic performance.
  
• CHAC is a member of the California Psychology Internship Council (CAPIC). 
  

For further information on MFT internships and MFT applicants, please contact Elizabeth S. "Betty" Mackey, MA, MFT, (bmackey@chacmv.org) or by phone at 650-965-2020 x25.

For information on doctoral level psychology internships, please contact Stewart Kiritz, PhD. (skiritz@stanford.edu) or by phone at 650-424-1405 for application.