So Tuesday I tour Juvenile Hall at 2:30 and then meet with my Supervisor to be and the Program Manager of the program where I will be doing my practicum. Woo Hoo! Doubtless I'll be sorry the first time I have to spend two days of my precious study time working, but I am so VERY ready to be doing instead of schooling.
The plan is for me to make this as broad an experience as possible so in addition to psychometric testing I'll be doing screening, assessment and brief treatment of kids in Juvenile Hall. The gangs in my area of the county are pretty violent and kids are being tried as adults quite frequently, so I'm a little nervous about that. What does body armor cost, and is there a business casual line available? Yikes!
I'm curious how the treatment will look. I've done this work in a residential care setting after the kids get out of the Hall, but then I had plenty of time to get to know them, where now I'll have one or maybe two sessions at best. I cannot imagine what can be accomplished in a forced therapy setting with a frightened and angry child in that period of time, but I'm open to learn!
Well back to the academic world for now... had the day from hell yesterday with two presentations, a role play and a report due and I have one more presentation and another role play this morning. I hate sharing a shower with three other people in the morning in this house where I rent. Always hanging around listening like a spy for the door to open so I can scuttle in and stake out my territory for 15 minutes. LOL!
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Mamabeek
I am a student, slogging my way through a Clinical Psychology PsyD with concentrations in Family Forensics and Neuropsychology.
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2 comments:
Wow you are starting your practicum!! I love reading your blog its like taking a glimpse into my future. :-)
I would be nervous and looking for some body armor myself. I was wondering, do they kind of train you or do they just sorta expect you to know what to do right away because you were in school? Psychometric testing is pretty heavy... did you just learn that at school and then go apply it in a professional setting? I am worried that I will be expected to do that. :-S Anyways that is really exciting!! Congrats on that!!
It sounds like you are really busy with all your classes. I am super happy I don't have to do role playing stuff yet. It sounds uh.. stressful. Yeah and I hate sharing the shower, I don't know about your house but I can't even pee in private.. at least not in mornings! :-P
Dragon
Yeah I think they just kind of throw you in there! I did as many tests as I could find people to cooperate when I had the kits in my classes so that I'd be halfway proficient when I got to this scene.
When I did my masters I saw all those films of the Master therapists in the 70s doing therapy behind a glass wall with cotherapists on the inside and outside pretty much holding their hands all down the line. Then when it was my turn to do it, they just sent me in a room with my clients and that was that. I was TERRIFIED!!!
We did do some role plays with video where the class critiqued each other (which we are also doing in the doctoral) and we could play it back and look at ourselves, but it wasn't the real thing. I guess very few places can afford to do that sort of thing these days. Just my luck all I could find were adults to test, so I gave the WAIS a whole bunch, but I only gave the WISC once, and that is what I'll likely do the most of. The MMPI is just too scary to even think about... I've got a big final project to do with it in class in a few weeks so somehow between now and the second week of June I need to become 'proficient' on that and the MCMI too. Yikes! It is such an enormous and complex instrument I think you could take a lifetime to learn all the nuances.
Do no harm, do no harm, do no harm... =|
Maybe if you're doing a research program and you can learn the tests early on and then do them in a research setting you'll be really comfortable with them by the time you see clients in your practicum. I did an MFT masters, so there was no thesis, it was all clinical.
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