Externship Program
The Towson University Counseling Center provides high quality training through its Externship Program to students enrolled in doctoral programs in clinical psychology, counseling psychology, pastoral counseling or related fields. Students in the program have opportunities to provide individual and group counseling, teach a career development course, and offer outreach and consultation services to the campus community. The Counseling Center provides intensive individual and group supervision to externs to facilitate the development of their clinical skills and their understanding of the operation of a university counseling center. Students are asked to commit at least one academic year to the Externship Program to maximize the benefits to their professional growth.
Externship Activities
Individual Clients
Externs carry individual caseloads according to their personal training goals.
The Externship Program allows for flexibility in terms of the number and types of individual clients that an extern sees. Externs work with their supervisors to create a caseload to accommodate their training needs.
Individual Supervision
Senior staff and doctoral interns provide two hours per week of regularly scheduled individual supervision to externs. Supervision includes discussion of case management, assessment and treatment issues, and general issues pertaining to each extern’s Counseling Center experience. Rotation of supervisors occurs at the half-year mark. Matching of externs and supervisors will attempt to take into account the special training needs of individual externs.
Extern Seminar
Externs meet as a group once a week for one hour with the externship coordinator. Seminar time includes case conferences, presentations by senior staff and doctoral interns on topics of special interest to externs, and discussions of general externship issues.
Outreach and Consultation
Externs will be involved in facilitating outreach programs. Examples of outreach and consultation programs include faculty/student development workshops, orientation workshops, Women’s Center workshops, outreach workshops of various themes, and liaison programs with the residence halls and the Office of Diversity. In addition, externs may serve for one semester or one entire year on the Outreach and Consultation Team, to examine issues germane to outreach and consultation programming.
Optional Activities
Group Therapy
As opportunities become available, externs may choose to co-lead therapy groups. Examples of types of groups that have been offered at the Counseling Center include general therapy, career development, stress and time management, assertiveness training, sexual abuse, eating disorders and women’s issues. Externs who co-lead therapy groups will be provided with one additional hour of supervision per week by the group co-leader.
Teaching
Externs have an opportunity to teach a two-credit academic course entitled Personal Life and Career Planning. The course is structured, sequential and developmental in nature. Supervision is provided for this activity.
Eligibility of Externs
The externship is designed for students who are enrolled in a doctoral program in clinical psychology, counseling psychology, pastoral counseling, or related fields, and who have completed at least one practicum in counseling.
Application Procedures
To apply, send a letter of interest, a current resume listing all relevant work experience and practica, a graduate transcript, and three letters of reference, including at least one from a supervisor familiar with your clinical work, to the address below:
Betty A. Fletcher, Ph.D.
Externship Program Coordinator
Counseling Center
Towson University
8000 York Road
Towson, MD 21252-0001
Application deadline is February 26, 2010. Qualified applicants will be invited to the Counseling Center for an interview. For more information, please call 410-704-2512. Fax number 410-704-3453.
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