Child Clinical Placement 2A (PSYC90075)

A 50 day placement within the Psychology Department at the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne Psychology Clinic.Students are also required to participate in Clinical Case Conference while they are on placement. Clinical Case conference is held weekly during the teaching period (1)Psychology Clinic Placement. Students are required to complete 50 days placement in the Psychology Department at the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne Psychology Clinic at Blackwood Street, North Melbourne, of which 40 days (including 3 days of clinical training workshops) will be at the Royal Children’s Hospital and 10 days will be within the University of Melbourne Psychology Clinic seeing adult clients. The placement will combine patient contact, supervision and the optional delivery of training. Over the 50 days, students are required to accrue 120 hours of face-to-face contact with patients (assessment and treatment of children and adults: 100 hours within the Royal Children’s Hospital and 20 hours at the University of Melbourne Psychology Clinic. Assessment will comprise about 50-60 % of case hours with individual treatment comprising the remainder. There may also be scope for family or group treatment.Individual supervision may be augmented with group supervision. Supervisors for the field placement component will be registered as both psychologists and supervisors with the Psychologists Registration Board of Victoria.In most cases they will also be a member (or eligible for membership) of the College of Clinical Psychologists of the Australian Psychological Society. The field supervisors will be responsible for ensuring that students are adequately introduced to the field setting and for day-to-day supervision of the student’s placement. Field Supervisors will ensure that students are exposed to a range of clinical work, as far as possible allowing the student to function as a clinical psychologist within the facility. (2)Clinical Case Conference (Co-ordinators: Dr Lisa Phillips/ Dr Rowena Conroy). There are two major purposes for the clinical case conference. The first is to provide the opportunity (structure, feedback) for students to gain skills in presenting case material in an effective, professional manner, with emphases on the following:

• Selection of material (clinical content and focus of presentation)
• Organisation of the material (format; use of overheads, etc)
• Personal presentation skills
• Physical environment
• Timing of presentations
• Evaluation/feedback.

The second purpose for Clinical Case Conference is to provide the opportunity for students to discuss selected clinical issues in a large group format, with emphases on the following:

• Focus/purpose for formal case presentations·Integration of clinical and research material within scientist-practitioner framework of professional practice.
• Discussion of broad professional and ethical issues
• Implementation of professional skills Child specialisation students will alternate between a Clinical Case Conference taken with Clinical and Neuropsychology Students and a specialised Child Clinical Case Conference