Child Clinical Placement 2B (PSYC90076)

Fifty five (55) days of field placement within a community child and adolescent mental health 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

Field placements may occur in a variety of child and adolescent mental health agencies across Melbourne. There will be a wide range of clients, clinical problems, assessments and outcomes across the age range as part of this experience. Some specialised experiences with particular disorders and settings will be available. The placements will provide students with an opportunity to gain valuable experience in the professional practice of clinical psychology. Students will be expected to see children, adolescents and families for assessment and individual treatment and to demonstrate that they possess the knowledge and skills to assess, diagnose and provide interventions for a variety of diagnostic problems. The integration of the placement experiential learning and the didactic content in course subjects and clinical case conference will provide students with the opportunities to evaluate the most appropriate interventions for a given disorder using evidence based treatment models. Generally students will be required to commit two days per week to external placements for 27 weeks of the year.

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 would a clinical psychologist within the facility. Clinical Case Conference (Co-ordinator: 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 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