2020 Breakout Sessions - Hess et al.

2020 Breakout Sessions - Hess et al.

Title of Presentation: Building Collaborative Partnerships Among Rural Psychology Internship Training Programs

 

Presenter Information:

Robyn S. Hess - High Plains Psychology Internship Consortium

Jeremy Morris - Salina Regional Health Center

Claudia Canales - Salina Regional Health Center

Sean Dodge - Clover Educational Consulting

Jan Witte-Bakken - Clinical Director/Internship Training Director

 

Abstract:

Approximately 20% of individuals in the United States live in areas considered to be rural (Hart, Larson, & Lishner, 2005). Although rural living may offer many advantages, many rural areas throughout the country experience serious shortages in behavioral health providers. Those practitioners who do reside in rural areas may find themselves facing unique practice challenges such as distrust from community members, complex social networks that pose ethical challenges, skepticism towards mental health treatments, and differing cultural values (Riding-Malon & Werth, 2014). The shortage of providers and lower rates of insurance coverage means that the mental health needs of rural residents are often unmet (Health Professional Shortage Areas, 2019). Internship training programs that prepare Health Service Psychologists represent an important strategy for recruiting and retaining practitioners to these rural areas. Unfortunately, there are many challenges to offering this type of programming in rural areas including limited resources, a smaller subset of available supervisors, and risk of isolation and burnout among practitioners (Bethea, Damayanti, Maher, Lucente, & Richmond, 2019). Additionally, the rigors of maintaining APA-accreditation by fulfilling the yearly training requirements for interns can be an enormous burden on small agencies. The Group for Rural Internship Training (GRIT) was designed to address these challenges by providing supports to rural internship programs. Through this network, training directors, faculty, and interns collaborate on didactics, discuss difficult ethical issues, share resources, and act as a support network for one another. GRIT is a collaborative of doctoral psychology internship training programs located in rural communities in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, Northeast Texas, Minnesota, and North Dakota. The network currently includes internship programs with the High Plains Psychology Internship Consortium, Salina Regional Health Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, and Solutions Behavioral Healthcare. Network partners were selected based on their commitment to operating high quality doctoral psychology internship programs that serve rural populations. GRIT is coordinated by Clover Educational Consulting Group and was supported by a HRSA development grant. To date, GRIT has developed a mission, vision, and values statement; built a stable membership base; developed a website that serves as a digital community hub; and has hosted two day-long didactics for the interns at each of the respective member sites. Future goals are directed towards building our membership, developing a library of didactic trainings, as well as pursuing additional HRSA funding to support these efforts. The purpose of this presentation is to review the benefits and challenges to developing collaboration among rural doctoral internship training programs. All training directors, and especially those who direct programs located in rural areas, will be able to learn innovative strategies for connecting with similar programs using technology (e.g., shared networks, teleconferencing, recorded didactics) to enhance their own efforts at training and supporting doctoral level psychology interns.

 

Learning Objectives:

  1. Attendees will be able to identify at least 3 challenges to providing doctoral psychology internship training in rural areas.

  2. Attendees will be able to explain how different strategies can be used for enhancing communication across training sites.

  3. Attendees will devise a strategy for expanding collaboration with other training programs that share common features or that are located in rural areas.

 

References:

Domino, M.E., Lin, C.C., Morrissey, J.P., Ellis, A.R., Fraher, E., Richman, E.L., Prinstein, M.J. (2019). Training psychologists for rural practice: Exploring opportunities and constraints. The Journal of Rural Health, 35, 35-41. doi: 10.1111/jrh.12299

Paulson, L. R., Casile, W. J., & Jones, O. (2015). Tech it out: Implementing an online peer consultation network for rural mental health professionals, Journal of Rural Mental Health, 39, 125-136.

Riding-Malon, R., & Werth, J. L. (2014). Psychological practice in rural settings: At the cutting edge. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 45, 85-91.