Texas Psychology Internships Initiative

CONTACT INFORMATION

El Paso Psychology Internship
Consortium
Contact: Dr. Brian Sneed
(915) 747-5302

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 committed almost $2.2 million to three sites and one consortium to develop new APA-accredited psychology internship programs over five years.

The three 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. The consortium includes The University of Texas at El Paso, William Beaumont Army Medical Center and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso. During a five-year period, grant funding will total $638,853 to Scott & White, $464,733 to Travis County, $509,082 to UH–Clear Lake and $556,829 to the El Paso Psychology Internship Consortium.

Each grantee 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 four programs combined will train an estimated 62 interns by 2017.

As a condition of the grant, the organizations 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.