Trainee Requirements

Extern trainees come from different academic disciplines including Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Social Work. Currently, we have formal training relationships with FAU’s Counselor Education program, FAU's Social Work program and Nova Southeastern University’s doctoral program in clinical psychology. In the coming years, one of our primary goals is to expand our practicum program to other mental health training programs at FAU, as well as create new relationships with other universities in neighboring communities.  Our extern training program is only open to students of those programs and/or academic institutions for which we have a formal memorandum of understanding. This process is often involves contracts and can take time to build a new relationship. 

Extern trainees must be currently enrolled in an appropriate academic program leading to licensure and certification.  We require that applicants have one year / two semesters of supervised counseling experience and have completed basic coursework in psychotherapy or counseling theory, as well as clinical diagnosis. If students meet the above mentioned criteria, they may complete an application and potentially participate in an in-person interview to determine goodness of fit at our site. Applications are to be submitted in early spring and graduate students will be notified of their interview status by the end of the first week of April, at the latest. Applicants are accepted pending background clearance and goodness of fit. Trainees make a commitment of two semesters to one year at our site, usually committing to the Fall and Spring semesters of the upcoming academic year. 

Program Requirements

Each extern trainee has a “Training Program Agreement” which specifies time and activity requirements for their placement at FAU CAPS. A commitment of two semesters is the minimum practicum trainee placement. A twelve month placement over three consecutive semesters is the maximum placement. All extern trainees commit to placements of 20 hours per week at CAPS. Ten hours of direct client contact are required. The trainee may engage in direct contact by providing an ongoing individual psychotherapy; observing, co-leading, or independently leading a workshop or classroom presentation, participating as a co-therapist in a group, and participating in an outreach event. The trainee is expected to complete all required on-site hours regardless of whether appointments are filled or open. Any unfilled direct contact hours may be used for writing progress notes, assessments, and termination summaries, as well as reviewing recordings of sessions, reading clinically relevant material, researching and developing workshops/groups, and engaging in other professional development activities as required.