This program is a unique collaboration between Rutgers UBHC and Dover School District, a small, suburban community in a culturally diverse school district in northern New Jersey. The program is funded through a collaboration between Department of Children and Families grant money and the school district, which allows for the students to receive mental health services within the school at no cost to them. This allows individuals who would otherwise not seek services to receive quality mental health therapy.
This opportunity allows the intern to see students in the setting where they spend the majority of their day and provides them access to a number of individuals that play a significant role in the child’s life - teachers, counselors and child study team. This position is not a typical school counseling internship in that the intern is not on the child study team. It is a highly clinical role where the intern will work with the most at-risk students within the school, providing individual, group and family counseling, as well as participating in crisis assessments for individuals presenting as suicidal, homicidal or actively psychotic.
Additional Services provided by interns include: evaluation and assessment; multidisciplinary team participation; faculty and parent training, consultation with other mental health staff; and participation in school and community advocacy groups. The intern will be predominantly located within the Dover High School, but there are opportunities to do assessment, groups, and programming within the middle or elementary schools, depending on the interest of the intern and the needs of the school. A typical caseload would consist of 7-10 individual/family therapy cases as well as 1-2 groups. Every effort is made to provide the intern with a culturally, clinically and socioeconomically diverse caseload.