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- Oct 11, 2006
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I might be in trouble. I hope not, but maybe. Any ideas or advice would be much appreciated.
I'm a little less than four weeks from finishing my master's degree in Mental Health Counseling. Finding the kind of internship experiences that I want has been very difficult. Although I found an internship site, they didn't have enough hours to give me, and I haven't been able to get in at sites that I really wanted. In my program students find their own placements and arrange for affiliation agreements with the university if there isn't one. There is a student clinic, and I have done some work there too, but it still isn't enough. Several months ago, because I wasn't able to find a place to pick up more hours, and also because frankly I didn't have enough energy left after my full-time job to put in another 20 hours per week of volunteer work, I made arrangements for a licensed supervisor to sign off on some of what I do at my job so that I could count that. I have also continued to count hours from my original internship site and the student clinic.
At my full-time job I am a behavior specialist, and I do functional behavioral assessment, write behavior support plans, work with clients and their staff to decrease the frequency of target behaviors and teach more effective behaviors, etc. My clients at my job are developmentally disabled. Most of them also have mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders (almost all of them have anxiety, sometimes at extreme levels, including panic disorder and often paranoia) personality disorders, etc. Most of them take medications for these disorders and I go to their medical appointments and consult with their doctors regarding management of their psychotropic medications. Behavior specialists, however, don't officially diagnose or treat mental illnesses, and are not required to be licensed mental health professionals, although quite a few are MSWs or LPCs. A number of them have a PhD in psychology, but are not necessarily licensed as psychologists. There are also quite a few with a master's degree in special education, or a bachelor's degree in a related field, and the state is okay with that. They don't necessarily want MSWs and LPCs as behavior specialists.
My problem now is that the state licensing officials seem to be cracking down on people applying for Certified Professional Counselor Intern status, and some have been rejected because the board decided that their internship was not applicable because it did not include assessing and diagnosing mental health disorders. I'm not sure what the people who got turned down had done for their internships, but I know of people counting school counseling, substance abuse counseling, etc., and understand that they might be at risk for rejection too.
The big problem is that asking for a review of my hours before I graduate would raise red flags and ensure that my file would be scrutinized maximally, and I can't apply for my CPCI until after I graduate. My university will allow me to graduate with what I have, but after I graduate, I will no longer be able to practice counseling as a student intern, and will be unable to get any additional experience until my CPCI is granted. So if I graduate and get rejected by the licensing board, I have a problem. I could extend my student internship and not graduate for up to 21 weeks, in order to get more hours as a student intern, but then the same problem exists that I don't have a way to get enough of the kind of hours that they want.
I have been applying for jobs and offering to volunteer, and I am not getting anywhere, and time is running out. I can't afford to quit my job and volunteer full-time for a whole month, even if I had a place to do that. That would be about what it would take to replace all of the hours that I counted from my job as a behavior specialist. Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would you do if you were in my place? Do you have any suggestions for getting clinical experience that counts toward licensure? Has anyone worked as a behavior specialist and counted that as clinical experience?
Thanks!
I'm a little less than four weeks from finishing my master's degree in Mental Health Counseling. Finding the kind of internship experiences that I want has been very difficult. Although I found an internship site, they didn't have enough hours to give me, and I haven't been able to get in at sites that I really wanted. In my program students find their own placements and arrange for affiliation agreements with the university if there isn't one. There is a student clinic, and I have done some work there too, but it still isn't enough. Several months ago, because I wasn't able to find a place to pick up more hours, and also because frankly I didn't have enough energy left after my full-time job to put in another 20 hours per week of volunteer work, I made arrangements for a licensed supervisor to sign off on some of what I do at my job so that I could count that. I have also continued to count hours from my original internship site and the student clinic.
At my full-time job I am a behavior specialist, and I do functional behavioral assessment, write behavior support plans, work with clients and their staff to decrease the frequency of target behaviors and teach more effective behaviors, etc. My clients at my job are developmentally disabled. Most of them also have mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders (almost all of them have anxiety, sometimes at extreme levels, including panic disorder and often paranoia) personality disorders, etc. Most of them take medications for these disorders and I go to their medical appointments and consult with their doctors regarding management of their psychotropic medications. Behavior specialists, however, don't officially diagnose or treat mental illnesses, and are not required to be licensed mental health professionals, although quite a few are MSWs or LPCs. A number of them have a PhD in psychology, but are not necessarily licensed as psychologists. There are also quite a few with a master's degree in special education, or a bachelor's degree in a related field, and the state is okay with that. They don't necessarily want MSWs and LPCs as behavior specialists.
My problem now is that the state licensing officials seem to be cracking down on people applying for Certified Professional Counselor Intern status, and some have been rejected because the board decided that their internship was not applicable because it did not include assessing and diagnosing mental health disorders. I'm not sure what the people who got turned down had done for their internships, but I know of people counting school counseling, substance abuse counseling, etc., and understand that they might be at risk for rejection too.
The big problem is that asking for a review of my hours before I graduate would raise red flags and ensure that my file would be scrutinized maximally, and I can't apply for my CPCI until after I graduate. My university will allow me to graduate with what I have, but after I graduate, I will no longer be able to practice counseling as a student intern, and will be unable to get any additional experience until my CPCI is granted. So if I graduate and get rejected by the licensing board, I have a problem. I could extend my student internship and not graduate for up to 21 weeks, in order to get more hours as a student intern, but then the same problem exists that I don't have a way to get enough of the kind of hours that they want.
I have been applying for jobs and offering to volunteer, and I am not getting anywhere, and time is running out. I can't afford to quit my job and volunteer full-time for a whole month, even if I had a place to do that. That would be about what it would take to replace all of the hours that I counted from my job as a behavior specialist. Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would you do if you were in my place? Do you have any suggestions for getting clinical experience that counts toward licensure? Has anyone worked as a behavior specialist and counted that as clinical experience?
Thanks!
