Congratulations on securing a pre-doctoral internship! Whether you have had experience working with individuals who have developmental disabilities or this is your first time supporting and serving this population, you will learn and grow tremendously as a soon-to-be psychologist working with an interdisciplinary team! Below you will find very helpful information which you will refer to often during your internship.
The Guidelines for Behavioral Support is a helpful read. It will get you acquainted with the policies and procedures followed at Pinecrest.
Many people who live at Pinecrest have been here for many years. This means that you hardly ever have to start from scratch on an eval. This can be good and bad! Time is valuable on an internship! Better is time spent with the people who live here rather than sitting behind the computer screen!! However, being the obsessive psychology student you probably are, you will find many "mistakes" with the past evals. Do your best to balance your fresh, sharp skills of report writing with your time management skills! This is the Psychological Evaluation Outline we use here (as of 2008). It will probably be quite longer than what you may be use to doing. Also, there is a fairly thorough functional analysis section. This section must be done for each behavior being followed by psychology (sections A.-D.). Don't worry about the letter/number behind some of the bullet points.
I would have put examples of the Transmittal Form and Behavioral Guidelines on here, but it is much easier for you to update previous forms. These are formatted documents made specifically for these purposes.
The Clinical Case Formulation is written after you've written the psychological evaluation. This is attached to the Individual Support Plan (ISP) which is revised by the IDT annually.
Quarterly, everyone who receives psychotropic medication will be reviewed by psychiatry. We assist them by writing Quarterly Reviews. Included in the Quarterly Review is anything that has changed within the past 3 months along with the record of your Index Behaviors. You can find the last review and update it. The link contains fake information, but is still helpful. Psychiatric Write-Up Just print it, don't bother reading it on the computer!
The Behavioral Intervention Committee (BIC) meets once a week. Individuals who are assigned either Priority 1 or Priority 2 are reviewed at this time. The priority system is assigned as follows:
The Psychology Database is located in the psychology building. There is clipboard that you sign and a file tray where you place your documents. A printout is generated which you can get from your supervisor. The printout will tell you upcoming and out-of-date ISP, Psyc Eval, Behavioral Guidelines, etc.
Commonly used diagnoses:
317 Mild Mental Retardation: 70-55
318.0 Moderate Mental Retardation: 55-40
318.1 Severe Mental Retardation: 40-25
318.2 Profound Mental Retardation: Below 25
Assessments to be used per level of MR:
Other useful assessments include: FACT, MEDS, and DISCUS
Sometimes you will need to be familiar with Schedules of Reinforcement for behavior plans. This link has a variety of options listed.
This link is the Excel Spreadsheet for documenting internship hours. Categories which add up for direct client contact are: Assessment, Observation, and Total Treatment. For me, the “cases” cells were only filled out at the beginning and while on the Leesville rotation. After this, my clients did not change, so I left the rest blank. If you need to format any of the cells, click on Tools, Protection, Unprotect Sheet, Password: PSSC. This protection is for you so that you will not mess up your hard-earned hours.
Treatment: I often included POS’s or ISP’s in which individuals were brought to the meetings in the Other category. I loaded heavy on Milieu Training.
Clinical Consultation: Treatment team meetings included POS, ISP, 2:00 meetings, etc. Case consultation included but was not limited to BIC. Committees included sensory, accreditation, CRC. Other included mortality reviews, psychiatry, etc.
Clinical Documentation: Chart review and treatment plan formulation are good catch-all categories for ATAP work. For the Other, I often put: Internship paperwork.
Supervision: Individual supervision will go under Clinical Supervision. Administrative supervision may include other departmental meetings and meetings with administration. I put my Group Supervision under the Other category.
Research: Self explanatory
Training (receiving) : Make sure to fill out the Seminars table. The date cells have an issue with formatting. Just put the date in the same cell as the Name of Seminar. Other may include the first few weeks when you are in staff training and any other monthly trainings.
Training (providing) : May include when you show the new interns around. The rest is self explanatory.
Administration: The first few weeks of training may also go under Facility Orientation. Professional development hours may be specified under Other, i.e., applying for post-doc, preparing for events, etc.
These are Maps of Pinecrest. Again, just print them out!
Created by Jennifer Duplantis, Psy.D.
Pinecrest Intern 2007-2008
Useful Links
LEO - view your paycheck online
Email: Microsoft Exchange
Official Website of the State of Louisiana
APPIC
Job Search
APA Accreditation
Medication and Drug Interactions
Top 4 restaurants to visit while here:
