Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System

CENTRAL ARKANSAS VETERANS HEALTHCARE SYSTEM OVERVIEW

MISSION

To honor American's Veterans by providing exceptional health care that improves their health and well-being.

VISION

To be a Patient centered integrated healthcare organization providing excellent healthcare, research, and education; an organization where people choose to work; an active community partner; and a back-up for National emergencies.

VALUES

Our core values are Trust, Respect, Committment, Compassion, and Excellence.

The Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System is a two division, consolidated, tertiary care medical center containing medical, surgical, psychiatric, rehabilitation, and nursing home beds and a wide variety of outpatient specialty and primary care services. This VA Medical Center is one of the largest and busiest VA medical centers in the nation and contains a broad spectrum of inpatient and outpatient healthcare services ranging from disease prevention through primary care, to complex surgical procedures, to extended rehabilitative care. This VA was commended as being "Outstanding by the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations** (The Joint Commission) during a recent accreditation review. Affiliated with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences** (UAMS), this Medical Center is used as a training hospital for psychiatric, surgical, medical students and residents, as well as students from a diversity of Allied Health Professions training programs. Among the trainings offered at the CAVHS is the APA-approved Psychology Internship program. The medical center is located in Little Rock, Arkansas **, a metropolitan area of 583,845 people (median age: 34.7 years) and draws from a primary service area of 275,000 veterans. Additionally, the healthcare system serves many veterans from other VA's who are referred for specialty programs. Some dependents of veterans and military personnel are also served in CAVHS facilities.

PSYCHOLOGY TRAINING OVERVIEW

The CAVHS Psychology Training Program is built on a “Practitioner-Scholar” model of training. The program emphasizes in all aspects of its training that the best practice must be solidly based in science. The important hands-on experiential aspects of internship training are grounded in the scientific literature, and our interns are challenged to measure their assessment and intervention practices against an established knowledge base in a systematic way. All rotation supervisors emphasize the importance of consulting the scientific literature when working with a new patient population. This is accomplished through individual supervision and rotation specific reading assignments, as well as online availability of medical and psychological journals, textbooks and reference materials, accessible from each intern’s desktop.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The goal of the CAVHS Psychology Training Program is to provide a generalist training experience. All interns, regardless of specialty interests, are expected to master the basic skills required of a beginning psychologist in areas of assessment, intervention, consultation and professional development. While these basic skills are expected of all interns, the program also values the beginning development of specialty interest in health psychology or neuropsychology for individuals interested in these areas.

TRAINING PHILOSOPHY

Training in Psychology has been offered at this medical center since the 1950's. Our Psychology Internship Program has been accredited by the American Psychological Association since 1979. Our philosophy of training reflects a basic belief that the experiences provided the intern should be for the purpose of learning, with the provision of services to the medical center being important, but secondary. Our goal for the internship year is to provide each intern with individualized experiences and training, as well as increasing amounts of responsibility and autonomy commensurate with demonstrated abilities, so that sufficient preparation for the role of professional psychologist will be achieved by the end of the internship year.

The psychology training program is a generalist internship, focused on enabling each intern to gain the basic clinical skills in assessment, psychodiagnostics, psychotherapy and consultation necessary for the practice of professional psychology. Still, the breadth and flexibility of the training program provides interns well versed in the basics of psychology an opportunity to develop and pursue their interests in specialty areas. We recognize that service delivery is only one part of the psychologist's role; therefore, we provide opportunities for our interns to become well acquainted with the other aspects of the practice of psychology offering diversified applied training, Opportunities include understanding ethical and legal responsibilities, networking with peers and other professionals, gaining experience with administration, and functioning as a practitioner, consultant, and/or instructor.

We believe that interns completing our program of training will have gained a solid foundation of knowledge and experience on which to anchor their professional lives by expanding the directions of professional interest and practice. Those planning a career in psychological service delivery should have the necessary tools to proceed competently and responsibly in a wide range of diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitation settings. Others choosing careers in areas such as education, research, and administration can be confident that the internship will have significantly contributed to their professional goals.

AVAILABLE TRACKS

The Psychology Internship program contains three training tracks. These include General Psychology, Behavioral Medicine/Health Psychology, and Neuropsychology. The General Track is focused on providing Interns with a well-rounded experience in a wide variety of clinical settings.  Although ample training will be provided in working with mental health patients (psychiatry, addictions, post traumatic stress disorder, vocational rehabilitation), the generalist intern will also be exposed to working with medical patients. The Behavioral Medicine/Health Psychology Track is listed with Division 38 of the APA and meets the criteria for pre-doctoral training in Health Psychology. It provides a minimum of six months training in settings that serve primarily medical patients. Opportunities are also offered to work with psychiatric, substance abuse, vocational rehabilitation, and/or PTSD patients during the rest of year. The Neuropsychology Track is listed with Division 40 of the APA as meeting the criteria for pre-doctoral training in neuropsychology.  Interns spend six months working primarily with neuropsychology patients, at least some of which is supervised by Board Certified (ABPP) neuropsychologists. The additional six months is spent with a variety of medical and psychiatric populations.

ACCREDITATION

This internship is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) and is a member of the Association of Psychology Predoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC).  The program adheres to APPIC policy regarding offers and acceptances for training.  At the last APA site visit in 2010, we were awarded re-accreditation for seven years, which is the maximum amount of time awarded by APA.  Our next site visit is scheduled for 2017.

For more information regarding APA accreditation of this or other accredited internships, please contact:

Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20002-4242
Phone: (202) 336-5979

APPLICANT REQUIREMENTS

Applicants must be actively involved in pursuing a Ph.D. or Psy.D. degree from an APA Accredited program in Clinical or Counseling Psychology, or must be a respecialization candidate currently associated with such a program. All applicants must have the approval of his/her program director to begin internship in the fall, and must be United States citizens.

Applicants should have completed at least 900 hours of practicum experience, which includes face-to-face delivery of professional psychology services that are relevant to the applicant’s goals for internship.

Applicants are expected to have at least minimal proficiency in the administration, scoring, and interpretation of the more common psychological testing instruments, and to have had some experience with psychotherapeutic interventions with adults.

INTERNSHIP DESCRIPTION

• Appointment is made for a 12-month period and the intern is expected to complete 2080 hours. The internship year is divided into a one week orientation period, and four rotations (12-13 weeks each).  Interns are on duty five days per week, with a workday typically defined as 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The VA stipend is set nationally at $23,974 per year with pay distributed every two weeks. Interns receive health insurance, sick leave, annual (personal) leave, 10 paid federal holidays and authorized absence for selected conferences. 

This program meets criteria of EEO. In accordance with the membership guidelines of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC), recruitment and selection procedures are designed to protect and preserve the applicants' rights to make a free choice among internship offers.