Practicum Placement Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program

Practicum Placement

The first practicum experience, EDPS 61400 Advanced Counseling Practicum, is taken during the Fall and Spring semesters of the second year of the doctoral program curriculum. All students are placed in the Purdue Counseling and Guidance Center (PCGC) for these two semesters. Some students with a counseling master's degree have the experience needed to take practicum their first semester at Purdue.
 
The second practicum experience, EDPS 614B (will be EDPS 62400), Advanced Counseling Practicum, is taken in the Fall and Spring semesters of the Third Year of the doctoral program. This place is off-site, that is, not in the PCGC.

 During the second semester of the second year in the program (i.e., Spring semester, while taking EDPS 61400, students apply for placement in an off-site practicum setting. The CPSY Off-Site Practicum Coordinator manages the application and placement process, typically using the Off-Site Practicum Fair in March. Within this structure, students participate in a socialization experience that prepares them for internship application and the job search; that is, they contact the site, apply for the practicum, submit a vita, interview, et cetera.

Expectations

Students are responsible for (a) keeping a personal log of all training hours completed in practicum courses and (b) providing the practicum course instructor and the PCGC secretary with a summary of their training hours at the end of each semester of practicum. All approved practice hours accrued in the doctoral program must be recorded each semester. These summary logs will be used in course evaluation, annual progress review, and verification of doctoral program hours (e.g., for internship application).
 
Students are expected to record their clinical training hours in the format of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) Application for Psychology Internship (see www.appic.org). The PCGC workroom computers have an excel file which is formatted for recording hours in the APPIC categories. You will need a personal flash drive; for security reasons, the PCGC computers will not retain your file.
 
As a guideline, to be eligible to apply for the pre-doctoral internship, students can expect to complete - on average - 40 intervention/ assessment (i.e., direct client contact) hours each semester of practicum. Both EDPS 61400 and EDPS 614B (will be EDPS 62400) require approximately 80 intervention/assessment hours for the academic year. If necessary, students take additional practicum placements to meet this minimally expected experience. The majority of students complete at least 277 intervention/assessment hours prior to applying for the predoctoral internship. The number of hours per se, while necessary for gaining sufficient experience to learn, does not alone qualify the student to progress through practicum and to internship. Evaluation and progress are based on faculty and supervisor feedback/evaluation of skills (e.g., conceptualization, intervention, openness to supervision).