PSY 499/Supervised Field Experience

This course is a preprofessional course, designed to assist you in exploring the discipline "hands on," as well as giving you the formal experience that many employers and graduate schools look for. Before this class ever begins I will expect that you have arranged an internship site and completed tasks that your site requires before you begin this process. Look here for my expectations before you start this course. For child sites this includes Act 33/34 clearances, however some sites have other requirements. These are answers to some of the questions you may have about this experience.

What will this class be like?

Eight to ten hours a week you will be at your site, performing the tasks that your site has assigned you. These may include reading books or policy statements, reviewing videos, visiting families, observing therapy, leading therapy groups, or going to meetings. While this should be an educational experience for you, you are doing your supervisor a favor. Therefore you may be asked to do some tasks which may be primarily designed to make supervisor's life easier and with little "educational" component. Remember, though, your job is to get a feeling for what life is like in that agency. We all do filing and paperwork in our jobs.

In addition, we will be meeting weekly to discuss your experience at your internship. For the first 5-6 weeks of the course we will be discussing professional ethics, so that you understand the parameters that ethics circumscribes around professional behavior. Following this experience we will be discussing issues that arise at your sites. The specific content will depend on the sites represented this year as well as the issues that arise from your experiences. You may learn as much from your classmates and their experiences as from your own site.

What are the requirements of this class?

The requirements of this class are simple yet important:

• that you maintain a professional and ethical stance with regard to your internship site, representing our department and university well within the community. This includes showing up to your site when scheduled and on time.

• that you attend our seminar regularly, contribute as appropriate, and listen sensitively to your peers.

• that you pass a quiz on ethics at Week 6.

• that you turn in a weekly journal of your experiences by noon on Tuesdays, the day before class. These should discuss both (a) what you did on your site and (b) what you thought about the issues raised during the week. For example, you may describe (1) leading a therapy group and the way that this changed how you see yourself and the other members of your group; (2) you might watch your supervisor's relationship with his or her clients and consider how this matches what we've talked about as good listening skills, respectful treatment of a client, or good ethical behavior, etc.

• that you turn in an accepted final version of your rŽsumŽ (including experiences from this semester) by the end of the semester.

Will we use a text?

How will I be graded?

• you fail to pass (85% or higher) the quiz on ethics.

• you behave in an unprofessional or unethical way at your site. We will talk about what this means over the course of the semester.

• you are absent from class or your site without an excuse. Consistent absences -- even with an excuse -- may also cost you a letter grade. Unexcused absences will cost you a letter grade.

• your weekly journal is late. In the real world, time does not stop just because your printer broke, your child has the sniffles, or your best friend is depressed. Since these things happen, it is best to plan to get your journal in before the absolute deadline.

• you fail to turn in an accepted rŽsumŽ by the end of the semester.

Page by jms
URL= http://psy1.clarion.edu/jms/syllsfe.html

Last modified January 13,1999.