Social Work Internship at Kaiser Permanente Oakland
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY
CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES
3505 BROADWAY
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 94611
(510) 752-1075
CLINICAL SOCAL WORK INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
We offer 2-3 social work internship positions on the Child and Family Services Team.
THE SETTING
The East Bay Area
Kaiser Permanente's East Bay Area includes its flagship Oakland and Richmond medical centers, which first took care of Richmond shipyard workers during World War II, then opened to the public in 1945. Today the East Bay Area encompasses 11 cities and municipalities within Alameda County and the western part of Contra Costa County. About 700 physicians and 5,000 employees serve 260,000 members in the East Bay Area. Hospitals, medical office buildings, and pharmacies are located in the Oakland Medical Center (including medical offices in Alameda) and Richmond Medical Center. Oakland is also a regional referral center for designated services, such as genetics, spine surgery, and pediatric neurosurgery, while Richmond is one of four bariatric surgery centers in our Northern California Region.
Patient Population
The East Bay is among Kaiser Permanente's most diverse areas, with employees, physicians, and members from many different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. We work with children, adolescents, and families from virtually all psychiatric categories. Our Labor-Management Partnership Bilingual Program offers in-person language assistance to members in five languages: Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and American Sign Language. We also hire full-time or contract interpreters as needed and have over-the-phone services available in more than 150 languages, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Staff
The child and family services is a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural team consisting of 2 psychiatrists, 12 psychologists, 6 LCSW, and 1 LMFT. A special feature of our department is its breadth of professional expertise and diversity of approaches to mental health care. Our staffs view treatment from a range of theoretical orientations, which include Cognitive Behavioral, Psychodynamic, Developmental, Behavioral, Biological and Family System. It. Professionals on our team are capable of providing bilingual and bicultural services in American Sign Language, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Spanish.
Services
We specialize in working with children (through age 18) and families undergoing stress due to chronic or acute illnesses, transitions in the family, developmental issues of children, behavioral and social difficulties, parenting issues, and other mental health concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.
We work closely with the Department of Pediatrics, the Chemical Dependency Recovery Program, and the Department of Health Education in providing a continuum of care for our patients at the Oakland Medical Center. We offer individual, family, group and crisis assessment and evaluation and treatment to children, adolescents and families. We also have an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) that provides services to recently hospitalized individuals or people who would otherwise be at risk for hospitalization. If necessary, we also offer psychotropic medication treatment to children and adolescents. We do not provide educational and learning disability evaluations, but we do advise parents on how to obtain these. We also do not provide Court Mandated Treatments or Custody Evaluations.
THE TRAINING PROGRAM
General Principles
The basic training philosophy adopted by this department stresses a commitment to a continuous reassessment, modification, and enrichment of counseling techniques. Interns are exposed to a unique and diverse community. There is a clear emphasis on the role of the clinical social worker in a multi-cultural community and outpatient setting. Interns will be encouraged to become familiar with the demographic composition of the community in which our clients reside.
The internship consists of three components:
1. Regular exposure through active participation to all facets of
outpatient services, including collaboration with staff to co-lead
groups.
2. Professional guidance through sessions of formal individual supervision
and informal contacts with staff members.
3. Regular weekly training seminars.
Supervision
Residents will receive at least one (1) hours of regularly scheduled individual supervision. In addition, they will be supervised on cases in their seminars. Selection of cases and size of caseload is carefully adjusted to the intern's readiness and training needs as determined by his/her supervisor.
Seminars
Interns attend three (3) weekly seminars. All interns and residents from the Department of Psychiatry attend a weekly diversity seminar on Wednesday for 20 weeks. All MSW interns attend a weekly seminar focusing on working with children, adolescents, and families. Lastly, the MSW interns attend a weekly seminar focusing on group treatment.
Four (4) times during the training year, interns attend a 4 hour seminar with the other pre-MSW, pre-MFT, and pre-docs from our other medial centers. Seminars focus on Best Practice Guidelines and topics such as Diversity, Brief Therapy, Chemical Dependency, and Anxiety and OCD.
Evaluations
The primary supervisors are responsible for completing the intern’s evaluation in collaboration with the rest of the training staff. Depending on the MSW program, there are typically two evaluations, one mid-year and one at the end of the year. All efforts will be made to provide ongoing feedback to residents throughout the year. Interns will also have an opportunity to evaluate this program twice a year.
Grievances
Any problem, which might arise, should be addressed with the intern's primary supervisor. If the problem cannot be resolved, then this matter should be taken up by the Director of Training. A Policy and Procedures manual provides a lengthy description of grievances procedures.
Apply To:
Departments of Psychiatry Child and Family Services
Kaiser Permanente, Oakland
3505 Broadway Blvd. 4th floor
Oakland CA 94611
Director of Training: Maxine Turret, L.C.S.W.
510-752-1429 E-Mail: maxine.turret@kp.org.