Didactic Seminars
Throughout the year, the Internship arranges presentations by faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars and staff clinicians from other Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta disciplines on subjects as diverse as pediatric psychology, anxiety treatment, behavioral assessment techniques, treatment design in applied behavior analysis, screening and diagnosis for developmental disabilities, ethics, manuscript review process, parent training, self-injurious behavior, pediatric feeding disorders, behavioral covariation, pediatric psychopharmacology, hyperactivity, neuromuscular disorders, and social acceptability of behavioral treatments. Interns also participate in a Children’s wide didactic focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion at least five times during the year. Didactics generally occur three times a month.
Program-Wide Group Supervision
Interns meet monthly as a group to participate in a shared supervision experience. These sessions take a broader look at clinical activities, and their relationship with other areas of professional identify and activities. Often the discussions turn to the “soft skills,” which are trans-theoretical in their relevance for being an effective professional psychologist. Group supervision typically occurs once a month.
Diversity Seminar
Interns monthly Diversity Seminars during the year. The seminars include psychologists and trainees from across the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta system and cover a variety of topics associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion within psychology. The seminars occur on Fridays at lunchtime.
Professional & Career Development Series
In addition to the breadth of clinical and research experiences available, the internship provides instruction and training focusing specifically on the interns’ continued growth and development as professionals. The professional development component of the training program is designed to facilitate the interns’ acquisition of a postdoctoral fellowship or employment after the completion of the internship year. This series explores every aspect of the employment process and includes topics ranging from the development of a curriculum vita to contract negotiation. The discussions are intended to be responsive to the needs of the interns, so the topics can be tailored to address the changing concerns as expressed by the interns. This series typically occurs once a month.
The training director typically meets with interns once a month.
Grand Rounds
Grand Rounds occur throughout the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta system. The Marcus Autism Center and Behavioral Mental Health Center provide monthly grand rounds as does Scottish Rite Hospital. Egleston also holds a monthly grand rounds. These series includes clinical and scientific lectures from Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta faculty and staff, as well as invited faculty from academic institutions from around the country. Interns are expected to attend 5 grand rounds (or equivalent presentations) during the year.
Summer Symposium
Near the start of each training year, interns involved in the care of children with developmental disabilities join other trainees and professionals to attend the Marcus Autism Center Annual Summer Symposium. This symposium includes three full days (18 hours) of presentations that provide an in-depth review of key issues related to research and clinical care for the populations served by the Center. Topics in recent years have included defining, detecting and diagnosis ASD, ethical issues in identification and diagnosis, intervention programming, family and community programming, translational research, cultural diversity, telemedicine, nutrition, clinical trials, and animal models. An additional two-day (12 hours) Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition Advanced Clinical Training is also available to interns.