COUNSELING - Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology

Clinical Experiences for Community, School, and Counselor Education and Supervision Students

Welcome! Thank you for visiting the Clinical Training section of the Counseling Program Website!

Competent clinical training is considered to be the most critical experience component our program. You will find that the UTSA Counseling Program faculty members are unmistakably committed to preparing professional counselors and promoting the development of students’ professional counselor identity.

In addition, every UTSA Counseling Program faculty member, who provides practicum and/or internship supervision, are accomplished clinicians with extensive training and professional experience and demonstrated competence in counseling and supervision. Likewise, Affiliated Site Supervisors have advanced clinical education and training in counseling or a related profession, including appropriate certifications and/or licenses. Site Supervisors also possess extensive knowledge of the Counseling Program’s expectations, requirements, and evaluation procedures for students.

Affiliated clinical training sites include a myriad of human service organizations in and around the San Antonio region, including schools, community mental health centers, state hospitals, substance abuse treatment centers, military and veteran services, criminal justice services, and homelessness services, among others. These broad and diverse community settings provide opportunities for UTSA students to counsel clients who represent the ethnic and demographic diversity of their community.

Clinical training environments, both on- and off-campus, are conducive to modeling and demonstration and include: settings for individual and group counseling with privacy and space for appropriate training technologies (e.g. audio, video recording, supervision observation, etc.).

Practicum
Counseling Program students complete a 100-hour (i.e. 40 direct service hours and 60 hours of related professional activities) practicum experience. This practicum experience helps develop the student’s individual and group counseling skills, under intense supervision. Students enjoy weekly (i.e. average of one hour per week) individual and/or triadic supervision with a program faculty member or supervisor working under the supervision of a program faculty member. Students also attend an average of one and one half hours per week of group supervision with a program faculty member or supervisor working under the supervision of a program faculty member. Students are evaluated on their performance throughout the practicum experience, including a formal evaluation after completion of the practicum.

Internship
After successful completion of the practicum course, Community Counseling Program students complete two supervised 300-hour (i.e. 120 direct service hours and 180 hours of related professional activities) internship courses. These internship experiences provide students with opportunities to learn, under supervision, a variety of counseling activities (e.g. assessment, individual counseling, group counseling, record keeping, supervision, information, referral, in-service, staff meetings, professional literature review, research, etc.) that a professional counselor is expected to perform. Like practicum, students attend weekly on-site individual and/or triadic supervision and weekly group supervision with a program faculty member or supervisor working under the supervision of a program faculty member. Again, students are formally evaluated on their clinical performance throughout the experience, in consultation with the internship site supervisor.

For School Counseling students, students complete a minimum of 600 hours (i.e. 240 hours in direct service) in a school setting, spread out over three semesters. In the school setting, direct client contact hours are gained through individual counseling with students, small group counseling, classroom guidance activities, and parent meetings. The site supervisor serves as a professional role model for the school-counseling intern in job performance, personal growth, and professional and ethical behavior. As such, UTSA’s School Counseling Program requires that site supervisors hold at least a master’s degree in counselor education, with a school counseling certificate from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and have a minimum of two years of post-master’s work experience in the field of school counseling.

These clinical training experiences are tutorial forms of instruction; therefore, the ratio of students to faculty members does not exceed the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) requirements. Equally important, students are able to formally evaluate their supervisors and learning experiences at the end of their practicum and internship courses.

UTSA counseling students are expected to develop high quality clinical skills, rather than simply accumulate a large quantity of practice hours. We strive to develop each student’s clinical knowledge, skill, and application with particular sensitivity to issues of diversity.

Please, come and join us. We are excited about the future and the infinite possibilities available for our communities!

Best regards,

Robert Gee, Ed.D.,

Clinical Assistant Professor

Director, Community Family Life Center