Hopscotch and Harmony’s 5+1 Internship Program

So you did it! You’ve been studying for 5 years to become a provisionally registered psychologist and you’re finally ready to apply for jobs. Congratulations! But where-to from here?

As a provisional psychologist in Australia, there are lots of different settings in which you can work to gain the necessary experience and supervision required to become a fully registered psychologist. 

Some of those setting might include:

• Hospitals: Provisional psychologists can work in hospitals and clinics that provide mental health services. They may work in a variety of roles, such as providing psychological assessments, delivering therapy, or working as part of a multidisciplinary team. 
• Government agencies: Provisional psychologists may work for government agencies, such as the Department of Health, Department of Education, or Department of Justice. They may be involved in policy development, program evaluation, or service delivery, like doing assessments for kids in schools, or working with imprisoned people toward change and rehabilitation.
• Non-profit organisations/Non-government organisations: Provisional psychologists may work for non-profit organisations that provide mental health services to the community. This can include organisations that support specific populations, such as refugees, Indigenous Australians, or LGBTIQ+ individuals.
• Schools and universities: Provisional psychologists may work in schools and universities, providing counselling services to students and staff. They may also be involved in research projects or teaching psychology courses.
• Private practice: Some provisional psychologists work in private practice under the supervision of a registered psychologist. This can involve providing therapy to clients, conducting assessments, and undertaking clinical administration work involved with these services.

Whilst there are many different types of ways that you can work toward your general registration, we like to think that we offer something special at Hopscotch and Harmony.

One of the biggest things that we hear from psychologists - provisionally, generally, or endorsed registration - is that they think, or have experienced, private practice as really isolating work, where they’re like ships in the night with their colleagues. They may come into the office, see their clients, do their clinical admin, and head home without ever seeing one of their colleagues during their working day or week.

We do things differently at H&H. For a start, we will work with you carefully to ensure that your caseload is made up child and adolescent clients who light you up - rather than groaning as the alarm rings in the morning, you’ll be ready to jump out of bed and start your work day seeing the kinds of clients you love to work with.

Secondly, your wellbeing is our priority. We cap the number of clients you see a day at a maximum of 4 early in the internship and 5 later in the internship, so you have plenty of time to work on researching your clients’ presentations, undertaking your clinical admin, and ensuring that you know how to work with each and every one of your clients. We also offer a maximum of 4 client days per week in our internship program, so you can dedicate one day a week to finalising your university studies - because that’s how we need to think of your internship year, the finalisation of all the hard yards you’ve put in at university to date.

Third, we make sure that we hire the right kind of people to work at H&H. The kind of people we hire want to work with a team. We offer lots of ways to make sure you have plenty of time to connect with your colleagues. We know that a sense of belonging at work is vital to your wellbeing, and it’s one of our primary priorities.

Finally, we pair you with one of our talented, experienced Board-Approved supervisors to ensure that you get your learning and development needs met, and that you’re on track to get through your internship year as close to that 12 month mark as is feasible.

If you’ve recently finished your Masters of Professional Psychology and have experience in providing therapy to children and adolescents, and are interested in speaking to us about what we can offer then please get in touch. Our aim is to provide you with the working environment that will help you become a confident, competent, and supported psychologist working in Private Practice, 

If you have secured an internship elsewhere and are seeking Primary or Secondary supervision in the child and adolescent space then we can help you there too.  

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