Texas Psychology Internships Initiative

CONTACT INFORMATION

Travis County Juvenile Probation

Contact: Dr. Erin Foley

(512) 854-7078

University of Houston-Clear Lake
Counseling Center

Contact: Dr. Cindy Cook

(281) 283-2595

Scott & White Healthcare Systems

Contact: Dr. Michael Carey

(254) 724-2806

Overview

For 70 years, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health has focused on improving and promoting mental health in Texas. Supporting the education and training of the mental health workforce in Texas can be an effective way to improve access to and quality of mental health services, leading to recovery and wellness for more Texans with mental illness.

Through the Texas Psychology Internships Initiative, the Hogg Foundation awarded three grant sites $1.6 million to create internships for doctoral psychology students that will help alleviate mental health workforce shortages in Texas.

The grant sites are Scott & White Healthcare System in Temple, Travis County Juvenile Probation Department in Austin, and the University of Houston–Clear Lake Office of Counseling Services. During a five-year period, grant funding will total $638,853 to Scott & White, $464,733 to Travis County and $509,082 to UH–Clear Lake.

Each site will develop a new internship program that enables doctoral psychology students to get the year of supervised training and experience required for their degrees. The three programs combined will train an estimated 38 interns during the next five years.

As a condition of the grant, the sites have agreed to seek national accreditation for their internship programs from the American Psychological Association.

The primary goal of this initiative is to attract doctoral students in psychology to careers as mental health providers in Texas by expanding the number of high-quality internship programs that enable them to proceed with the education and training required for state licensure and professional practice. A secondary goal is to increase the availability of psychological services in Texas communities that are underserved with respect to mental health services.

Texas-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations and governmental entities were eligible to apply. Private practices and established unaccredited internship sites were not eligible to apply. This grant program will not fund additional intern positions at established internship programs, regardless of their accreditation status.