Jewish Family Services Collaborative Predoctoral Psychology Internship
Internship Selection Procedures
The JFS Collaborative adheres to all Association Of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Center (APPIC), policies, guidelines and procedures relative to information dissemination, interviewing, selection, and notification, including participation in the Match. All Internship Program training positions will be filled through the Match and/or Clearinghouse, unless permission is granted otherwise by the APA Commission on Accreditation (CoA), with a clearly defined process to review, interview, and rank applicants.
The Training Director, in consultation with the Predoctoral Internship Program Committee, has established procedures for the annual review of all applications. The Committee, chaired by the Training Director, will be comprised of one representative from each training rotation. The goal is to have an internship training cohort that is clinically competent and theoretically grounded, and who values generalist training and integration of diversity.
An annual deadline for internship application will be established, that usually being November 15th, which is consistent with APPIC guidelines. Application written materials are reviewed for completeness, to include a cover letter, APPIC Part I & II, three (3) reference letters, graduate transcript, a sanitized psychological report and sanitized case conceptualization, as well as his/her internal, and up to two external, rotation preferences. All applicants must be at a post-practicum and pre-doctorate level relative to their training status.
Following this preliminary review for application completeness and acceptability, application materials are distributed to committee members based on the applicant’s rotation preferences. Each applicant is reviewed minimally by three reviewers to determine the applicant’s acceptability to the Internship Program, and whether or not that applicant should be extended an invitation to interview. All applicant reviewers sign a Statement of Confidentiality, and recuse themselves if they have or may be perceived to have a conflict of interest relative to internship applicant’s review and/or selection. All candidates are reviewed without preferential consideration.
Each reviewer independently completes a numerical rating/narrative (Evaluation Form) for each reviewed applicant, and makes recommendations whether the applicant should be interviewed or rejected. Individual reviewer ratings are averaged on each applicant to determine an overall individual rating. The applicant pool is then rank ordered based on individual ratings. The ratings/ranking list is distributed for Committee discussion to determine which applicants are extended an invitation to interview. Based on Committee discussion, an applicant may or may not be extended an interview regardless of their numerical ranking. The Training Director shall contact each applicant in the interview pool by email or phone to schedule an interview, and to clarify which internal and external rotation(s) where the applicant is still under consideration.
Applicants are typically scheduled to interview in January, with interview offers extended no later than December 15th, consistent with APPIC guidelines. Applicants must confirm their acceptance of an interview, after which confirmation of interview date, schedule of interview day activities, and other supporting information (maps, hotel information) will be disseminated to applicants. Face-to-face interviews are strongly preferred by the Committee, although applicants may request a phone interview in extenuating circumstances. Applicants who are not accepted for interview will be notified on or before December 15th by way of a non-acceptance email as well as postal letter.
Applicant site preferences are indicated at the time of initial internship application, which is used to determine individual applicant interviews. Efforts are made to match the applicant with his/her preferred site, if deemed appropriate by the Committee. Each individual interview is approximately 30 minutes. The applicant is judged along a 5-point scale, in addition to narrative comments, utilizing the Interview Rating Form. At the conclusion of each interview day, an Interview Rating Form for each interviewee is returned to the Training Director. The interview ratings are compiled and then averaged with the written application ratings to generate a second rank order list of applicants. After interviews, applicants will be notified as to whether they are still under consideration to be ranked.
The Committee meets again to make recommendations to the Training Director relative to a final applicant pool, and rankings for each site. The Training Director compiles the final applicant rank list base on Committee recommendations and submits it to the Match adhering to APPIC guidelines.
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