PhD/PsyD Would Academic/Career Advising Count for APPIC Hours?

[denimfan]

Hello,

Would any of you be able to provide any information about this question? Thanks!

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[singasongofjoy]

To and from whom and under what circumstances? like you advising other people, or receiving the supervision yourself?

 

[denimfan]

Here's more detail. It would be direct contact with undergraduate students regarding their career/academic development as an academic advisor in a university. Also, there would be supervision from a licensed doctoral level supervisor.

 

[NeuropsychAJ]

Are you looking to count these as face-to-face clinical hours? Supervision hours?

 

[Justanothergrad]

Hello,

Would any of you be able to provide any information about this question? Thanks!

The question should not be 'does this count?'; the question should be 'does this supplement my training and provide evidence of my growing clinical skills in an area that is related to an area I want to work in?' If you want to work at a VA, those hours will not prepare you because you are simply not doing relevant things. If you want to work in a forensic setting, neuropsych clinic, a medical center, etc... those hours will not prepare you. While all internships will consider the hours you have differently, if folks at the sites I'm familiar (see above types of sites) with see you have a majority of your hours from something which does not increase actual clinical intervention/assessment skills (i.e., vocational practice are not these), then they are likely to have questions about the degree to which you are prepared. There are settings that it could be additive. Internship at a student counseling center might benefit from knowledge of vocational goals and career planning development for that population.

Either way, I would encourage you to make your focus on clinical skills and use these types of experiences as icing rather than the cake itself.

 

[denimfan]

Are you looking to count these as face-to-face clinical hours? Supervision hours?

That is what I'm hoping, but there is no information anywhere, including APPIC website, as to how these career/academic advising contacts would count as. My program also has no idea how these would count. Any thoughts?

 

[denimfan]

The question should not be 'does this count?'; the question should be 'does this supplement my training and provide evidence of my growing clinical skills in an area that is related to an area I want to work in?' If you want to work at a VA, those hours will not prepare you because you are simply not doing relevant things. If you want to work in a forensic setting, neuropsych clinic, a medical center, etc... those hours will not prepare you. While all internships will consider the hours you have differently, if folks at the sites I'm familiar (see above types of sites) with see you have a majority of your hours from something which does not increase actual clinical intervention/assessment skills (i.e., vocational practice are not these), then they are likely to have questions about the degree to which you are prepared. There are settings that it could be additive. Internship at a student counseling center might benefit from knowledge of vocational goals and career planning development for that population.

Either way, I would encourage you to make your focus on clinical skills and use these types of experiences as icing rather than the cake itself.

Thanks for your input. Yes, you are correct and I am hoping to use these hours as the "icing on the cake." Just wondering if these would count as direct contact hours or something else.

 

[psych.meout]

If your program has difficulty determining if and/or how this experience would count in terms of hours, internship and post-doc sites may have similar difficulties.

It would probably be better to pick a site/experience that is less equivocal than this.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Thanks for your input. Yes, you are correct and I am hoping to use these hours as the "icing on the cake." Just wondering if these would count as direct contact hours or something else.

I've seen folks count them before, but like I said, not all hours are created the same. While other sites may be more difficult to determine the quality of the site (was supervision good, how was clinical exposure, did student learn X skill effectively), sites with highly disparate training (in this case, career coaching) are easy to pick out and subtract. I've seen folks do that during internship application review: "This person says they have 1000 total hours, but 500 are in one semester over the summer right before application. I worry about what that indicates with respect to the training they received.. this person may actually only have effective training of 500 total hours"

So to answer your question I would say "Technically yes, but maybe not really... It all depends"

 

[LETSGONYR]

The question should not be 'does this count?'; the question should be 'does this supplement my training and provide evidence of my growing clinical skills in an area that is related to an area I want to work in?' If you want to work at a VA, those hours will not prepare you because you are simply not doing relevant things. If you want to work in a forensic setting, neuropsych clinic, a medical center, etc... those hours will not prepare you. While all internships will consider the hours you have differently, if folks at the sites I'm familiar (see above types of sites) with see you have a majority of your hours from something which does not increase actual clinical intervention/assessment skills (i.e., vocational practice are not these), then they are likely to have questions about the degree to which you are prepared. There are settings that it could be additive. Internship at a student counseling center might benefit from knowledge of vocational goals and career planning development for that population.

Either way, I would encourage you to make your focus on clinical skills and use these types of experiences as icing rather than the cake itself.

I mean... Yes, I totally agree, the quality of training and the applicability of training to future work is what is important. In a perfect world, that would be one of the only considerations.

But the current system is highly imperfect. I don't fault applicants/students for anxiously counting hours or trying to crunch numbers... the way the system is set up, numbers do matter to an unfairly high degree. You have to get your foot in the door before people look at your application to evaluate the quality of your training.

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[smalltownpsych]

It doesn't sound to me like a very good training site for a clinical career, but it will be on your CV whether you count it as direct contact hours or not. Since they are supervised hours, I think they count. Heck, in my daily clinical work I get involved in helping patients make academic and career decisions all the time.