Postgraduate Fellowship in Social Work
2010-2011
Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The Menninger Department of Psychiatry Postgraduate Fellowship program in Clinical Social Work is currently embarking on its thirty-second year. The one-year fellowships provide intensive training in individual, couple and family psychotherapy. Two sites house the program, one in the Texas Medical Center, and the other in West Houston. Both sites train psychiatry residents, graduate psychology interns, social work fellows, and social work interns. The program is vastly enriched by the demands of interdisciplinary expertise and collaboration. Each fellow will have a primary training site of either the Baylor Psychiatry Clinic outpatient services or the Menninger Clinic inpatient service.
Baylor Psychiatry Clinic
Postgraduate Social Work Fellowship Program
The thrust of the Baylor Psychiatry Clinic is to provide services to those individuals, couples, and families who can derive maximum benefit from outpatient psychotherapy. The clinic provides treatment services through a variety of modalities including brief, longer-term, individual, couple, and family and group psychotherapy. The clinical social work training program utilizes a biopsychosocial approach to treatment and focuses on the individual in relationship to their environment, culture, and multiple contexts. While the primary theoretical orientation of the training program is psychodynamic, there is considerable flexibility for the individual trainee to utilize any number of accepted approaches to treatment including systems and cognitive behavioral therapy and mentalization-based approaches.
The clinic is a training facility where the majority of services are provided by the trainees mentioned above. The psychiatry, social work, and psychology faculty provide ongoing supervision across interdisciplinary lines. Patients are seen by referral from physicians, other mental health clinicians and from organizations in the community.
Program Description
The Social work Fellowship at Baylor Psychiatry Clinic is offered to a person who is a licensed Master Social Worker. The fellowship is for one year beginning Sept. 6, 2010 - Aug. 31, 2011. This position includes a 20,000 stipend plus medical insurance. Clinical Training
Postgraduate fellows carry between 15 and 20 weekly ongoing patient hours, which include short-term as well as long-term individual psychotherapy cases .The Fellow may also conduct couple's evaluations and ongoing couple treatment as well as family therapy.
There are opportunities to develop focused time-limited groups in consultation with supervising faculty. Postgraduate fellows assist in the rapid assessment or screening of new patients in the Baylor Clinic. They also participate in interdisciplinary Focal Evaluations for patients with complicated diagnostic or treatment problems or for professionals in crisis. Additionally, fellows take a leadership role by assisting the Social Work Director and by providing training and support to interns.
Clinical Supervision
Clinical supervision includes up to four supervisory hours per week with full-time and part-time social work faculty and full-time psychiatry and psychology faculty. This is conducted both individually and in group. Consultation is also available on an as-needed basis. Additional supervision beyond these hours is available depending on the fellow's case assignments and other time commitments.
The fellow participates in numerous seminars during the academic year, including two weekly interdisciplinary case conferences, one of which is Psychiatry Grand Rounds. Additionally, seminars on psychodynamic theory, couples therapy, psychopharmacology and other special topics are provided.
Community Outreach
The fellow assumes an active role in our clinic's community outreach efforts, including presentations and talks in the mental health community. The Fellow coordinates the clinic's annual participation in the Baylor Health Fair and other mental health advocacy activities. Summary
The Postgraduate Fellowship is geared toward refining clinical skills. It does require that the Postgraduate trainee have previous academic and clinical exposure to psychodynamic, family systems, and crisis intervention concepts. Fellows are chosen not only for their demonstrated overall excellence, but also for their explicit potential to contribute clinical leadership as a social worker.
The Menninger Clinic Postgraduate Social Work Fellowship Program
Social work at The Menninger Clinic has a long and distinguished history. Elmer Ernest Southard, for whom the Southard School in Topeka was named, was involved in developing the clinical social work program at Smith College. His directive to Dr. Karl Menninger was to "go back to Kansas and develop a hospital, but don't forget the children." The children's program at Menninger was significantly impacted early on by a multidisciplinary team devoted to caring for the needs of children and families.
Graduate students in social work first came to Menninger in 1944 and a steady stream of students came between the years of 1944 and 1959. In all, a total of 19 students came for practicum from a variety of schools including Washington University, the University of Pittsburgh and Smith College. There was a particular need for social work staff during the war when a number of psychiatrists and clinicians were serving in the armed forces and there was a huge shortage of qualified individual psychotherapists.
Program Description
The Post Master's Fellowship in Clinical Social Work at the Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Baylor College of Medicine is specifically designed to provide advanced training in assessment and treatment for individuals and families while developing a sophisticated framework for assessing the broader context in which people live. This context includes an appreciation of strengths, resources and resilience, and an understanding of class, culture, gender, race and access, as well as an appreciation of the health care delivery system.
The fellowship places a high priority on developing practitioners who have a strong foundation in theory, a capacity to be reflective regarding their own values and use of self, and a capacity to critically assess the strengths and limitations of various theoretical frameworks in the treatment process. Training occurs through a combination of course work, clinical practicum opportunities and intensive supervision.
About Menninger
The Menninger Clinic is a not-for-profit inpatient psychiatric treatment center serving adolescents and adults with a broad range of psychiatric and substance abuse problems. Specialty units include an Adolescent Treatment Program, Young Adult Program, Professionals in Crisis Program and the Hope Program for severely mentally ill patients.
Treatment follows an integrated biopsychosocial model in which pharmacological, psychotherapeutic and systems approaches are employed to assist patients in understanding and managing their symptoms. Much attention is given to careful and thorough diagnosis and a compassionate, client-centered approach to patient care.
The Menninger Clinic is affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital.
Fellowship Eligibility
Graduate of CSWE accredited MSW program
Adult psychiatry clinic and specialty inpatient program opportunities available
- One position at Baylor Psychiatry Clinic (outpatient)—Sept. 6, 2010 to Aug. 31, 2011
- Several positions at The Menninger Clinic (inpatient)—Sept. 6, 2010 to Aug. 31, 2011
Application Deadline: Feb. 15, 2010
Candidates will be interviewed by a group of clinical supervisors, including voluntary faculty.
The candidate may express a preference for assignment to either The Menninger Clinic or the Baylor College of Medicine’s outpatient Psychiatric Clinic. The selection committee will do its best to accommodate that preference.