For additional information about the UCHSC Psychology Predoctoral Internship, please call or write:
Clinical Psychology
UCHSC
Box C258-48
4200 E. 9th Ave.
Denver, CO 80262
(303) 315-8848
Denver Children’s Home
The mission of Denver Children’s Home is to provide a therapeutic, safe place for emotionally distressed children, adolescents and their families to heal and grow.
Denver Children’s Home is a residential and outpatient treatment center for at-risk, underprivileged children with special emotional, behavioral, or mental health problems. Denver Children’s Home provides care for deeply disturbed children, two-thirds of whom have severe mental illness such as clinical depression, bipolar mood disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychosis. Many of the children in our programs have a family history of trauma, abuse or neglect and more than half of the children in our care do not have significant familial support or involvement. Yet these children also have tremendous strengths—and it is these strengths we nurture to help them heal and grow.
Denver Children’s Home is the oldest nonprofit in Colorado. Throughout its 130-year history of service to the community it has adapted to meet the needs of the children and families who have turned to it for help. In 1876, the Ladies Relief Society founded the Denver Orphan’s Home as a refuge for homeless children. By the close of the century, the home had shifted its focus to providing temporary shelter for neglected and needy children, and in 1962, the Home began to concentrate exclusively on helping children with serious mental health problems.
The Home provides a comprehensive program of care that integrates psychotherapy, family treatment and formal schooling, and is built on providing a continuum of care for troubled children and youth—and their families. Our goal is to provide the most effective, but least restrictive type of treatment based on the individual needs of each child. Some children are so deeply disturbed that they need time to heal in a secure and protected environment away from their family; others benefit from day treatment programs that allow them to go home at night. The goal for most of the children, even for those with the most serious disorders, is to progress through the levels of care and eventually return home.
Denver Children’s Home firmly believes that the families of our clients should be included in the treatment planning process as active participants. We believe in using strength-based treatment with our families and work with a wide variety of family constellations (birth parents, foster and adoptive parents, single parents, gay families, and extended family or family friends that have chosen to raise these children). DCH works to increase safety and to improve the quality of attachment between caregivers and child; teach the families the skills necessary to help the children succeed in the home (and if not in the home, then in the next best placement), and are culturally responsive (i.e. we are attentive to the families' values and own ways of healing).
We offer a positive alternative to psychiatric hospitalization, as we combine intensive therapy, individualized academic support, and advanced drug treatments for depression and other mental illnesses. Children leaving DCH may still struggle with emotional and mental health problems, but measured against their diagnoses upon entering the Home, they often make tremendous progress against enormous odds. A key factor in the success of our programs is DCH’s commitment to helping the children take ownership of their treatment; to understand their reactions and responses to life events, accept responsibility for their actions, control their behavior, and develop coping mechanisms for difficulties beyond their control.
Our philosophy is to serve those children with the greatest financial and emotional need. By the time they reach DCH more than a third have been involved with the Juvenile Justice system and the majority has passed through social services and has failed in other academic or mental health institutions. Ninety-five percent of the children at the Home are from low-income families who are unable to afford private mental health care. At a time when other residential care facilities are eliminating or curtailing services to indigent patients, DCH treats the most difficult cases because they are the ones who typically cannot find appropriate care elsewhere.
Programs
On a daily basis, DCH clinicians treat an average of 35 children in our outpatient programs, 50 in our residential services, and also provide treatment for their parents, siblings and other relatives through our extensive network of intensive in-home treatment and family outreach programs. Our residential programs provide care for children in crisis and youth with serious psychiatric disorders and intractable behavioral problems. Reasons for admission include attempted suicide, violent outbursts, serious crime, and severe mental and emotional disorders. Our young patients need the breathing space afforded by this secluded treatment area to stabilize their emotions and their behavior. After a thorough evaluation, a comprehensive treatment plan is developed to address the needs of the child and the family. For many of these children, Denver Children’s Home becomes an extended family. We provide 24-hour treatment including individual, group and family therapy. DCH operates a full-time school so that treatment, academics, recreation and family life can be integrated in a safe and caring environment.
Discovery Home is for older youth who are preparing to graduate from high school and leave DCH. Sadly, for some of the children we serve, returning home to their parents is not a safe option and they must learn to live and work on their own. Eight young men live together as housemates, sharing the duties of shopping, cooking, and cleaning with the support of resident house parents. Some of these young people have scarcely experienced childhood and yet we must encourage them to take on the responsibilities of adulthood—attending high school, working toward finding employment or enrolling in college, and becoming self-sufficient.
The Bansbach Academy: The school is an integral part of both the residential and outpatient treatment programs at DCH. It provides a successful and safe academic experience while the children are undergoing therapy. Our education professionals work closely with the counselors and psychotherapists to ensure that the school program and the treatment program complement and support each other. Teachers focus on individual needs and learning styles with an emphasis on positive reinforcement, patience, and acceptance.
Our Day Treatment Program offers a combination of on-site schooling and therapy for children who have been struggling, failing and falling far behind in public school. Like those in the residential program, children coming into the day treatment program have issues with anger, truancy, drug use and other destructive behaviors that have made it impossible for them to develop the skills necessary for learning. Because they have fallen so far behind in school and have severe mental health needs, it is most effective to provide learning skills and therapy in an integrated and supportive environment. Teachers, therapists and counselors work with the children individually and in groups, with a major focus on helping the family as a whole.
The children in our After School Program Preventative Programming for children age 6-18 have been referred to us because they have exhibited warning signs of mental instability, emotional distress or behavioral problems. Our goal with this intensive counseling program is early intervention to forestall the types of problems we see in the older children admitted for long-term residential care. After school therapy offers a supportive bridge between school and family life, allowing the children to remain in their own neighborhood public school while participating in treatment. Our goal is to help the children develop the skills and confidence to succeed in school, make friends and cope with their often difficult home life.
Clinicians in our Intensive In-Home Program try to stabilize fractured families overwhelmed with mental health issues, substance abuse, neglect, and physical and emotional abuse. In many cases, the parents themselves have no experience of well-adjusted family life and no role models from whom to learn appropriate parenting. Working with therapists and counselors the whole family must painstakingly learn the basic skills of caring, sharing, controlling anger, and taking responsibility for their actions.
Goals of the training program:
DCH provides intensive treatment services to its clients and is committed to training psychology interns. The goals of DCH's training program are for its interns to:
1. Develop, refine and solidify a framework of professional self that includes an ethical base, is founded on viable theoretical tenants, and is empirically-supported, clinically advanced, and valued as effective and meaningful by the clients using services.
2. Learn to develop and implement effective clinical skills with a focus on assessment, diagnosis, formulation and coordination of treatment planning.
3. Develop and practice the use and integration of theory, research and scientific approach in the assessment, treatment and evaluation of clinical interventions, consultations and teaching.
4. Collaborate on inter-disciplinary teams to provide intensive clinical services to traumatized, abused and neglected clients.
5. Gain an understanding of the role of social and cultural issues (for both clinician and client) in treatment and to integrate this understanding into the treatment approach to maximize the benefits for DCH's client population.
Objectives of the training program:
The psychology intern will:
1. Develop an understanding of the culture of DCH, including the role of each of the professionals working with the children and their families.
2. Develop an understanding of DCH's relationship with referring agencies and the other professionals involved with the children enrolled in the programs and their families.
3. Develop an understanding of the treatment planning process, the collaboration needed to effectively work towards change, and generate successes that can be generalized and maintained.
4. Develop an ability to understand him/herself within the clinical context and clinical experiences.
5. Learn to be skilled in assessing and treating severely emotionally and behaviorally disordered children and adolescents.
6. Learn the basics of positive behavioral interventions.
7. Learn the tenants of family therapy.
Required activities:
The psychology intern will work with DCH to develop the combination of program services that will maximize their pre-doctoral internship training experience. Each intern will participate in the following core experiences:
1. Psychological assessments: Each month the intern will complete one comprehensive psychological assessment (including administration, scoring and interpretation of: Bender Gestalt, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fourth Edition, projective drawings, incomplete sentences, Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach Inkblots, Adolescent Psychopathology Scale and Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children) followed by a comprehensive report.
2. Psychotherapy: the intern will provide individual, group and family therapy.
3. Consultation: the intern will provide consultation to inter-disciplinary teams as well as participate in educational staffings.
4. Case management: for assigned cases.
5. Primary care psychology: the intern will participate in facilitating healthcare information and education services provided to clientele to improve the quality of services provided.
Theoretical Approaches:
Treatment at DCH utilizes a relational foundation and is grounded in our treatment principles. A variety of orientations are used including: biological, family systems, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, developmental and psycho-educational.
Types of Clinical Approaches:
· Interdisciplinary and disciplinary diagnostic services
· Individual therapy
· Group therapy
· Family therapy
· Milieu therapy
· Cognitive/behavioral milieu management
· Psychological assessments
· Individual educational planning assessment and academic programming
· Case management
Population of Clients:
The Departments of Human Services are the main referral source for clients treated at DCH. DCH specializes in the treatment of emotionally and behaviorally distressed youth from multi-problem families. Abuse and neglect, mental health issues, drug and alcohol use by the youth and/or family, cultural issues, socioeconomic difficulties, and court involvement are common in this population.
Supervision:
The intern receives supervision for all clinical activities, including psychological assessment, psychotherapy and consultation.
1. Assessment supervision: The Director of Testing will supervise the intern an average 1-2 hours per evaluation, more as needed. Supervision covers preparation, assessment, administration, review and interpretation of data and written reports.
2. Psychotherapy/case management supervision: The intern will receive one to two hours of supervision each week in the inpatient and health psychology programs.
Classes/Case Conferences/Scholarly Opportunities:
1. The intern will attend weekly multi-disciplinary team meetings.
2. The intern will participate in a weekly seminar focused on working with trauma and the impact it has on assessment, treatment and the intern’s professional development.
3. DCH offers in-service training on the first Wednesday of every month on relevant clinical topics.
4. Seminars on family therapy and assessment occur throughout the year.
5. The intern will participate in on-going research efforts to improve the quality of services offered at DCH.
Supervisors:
Primary supervision for the psychology intern will be provided by:
Brian Bagwell, Psy.D. (University of Denver, 2000). Areas of interest: trauma, forensics, drug and alcohol therapy, domestic offender treatment.
Michele Forstot, Psy.D. (University of Denver, 2005). Areas of interest: trauma, assessment, child, adolescent and family therapy, diversity, neuropsychology.
Elizabeth Hahn, Psy.D. Candidate (University if Indianapolis, Expected January 2007). Areas of interest: trauma, psychological assessment, treatment of children, adolescents and families, eating disorders.
Rebecca A. Hea, Psy.D. (University of Denver, 1995). Areas of interest: psychodynamic psychotherapy, assessment, trauma, cultural competence, training, and outcome research.
Joseph P. Monaghan, Psy.D. (University of Denver, 1985). Areas of interest: consultation, assessment, and treatment of children, adolescents, and families.