An approved placement must meet the following criteria in the State Regulations:
Practice is limited as an employee in a public or private institution. (With a treatment team) .
Must be under approved supervision
Is limited to the 12 core functions.
There is a bit of a catch 22 about internship. You cannot get your learner's permit (Trainee, Intern, Associate license) a supervised work experience, and many times, you can't get a position without a license. The idea is to go to the prospective employer and fill out Attachment C. Attachment C is a contract between you, the supervisor of your Internship, and the Licensure Board. When your license is approved, you can begin accumulating experience hours. You can also use a volunteer position, and you can have more than one place of practice, but you will need attachment C for each. The Attachment C is an experience plan, indicating what you expect to occur. It includes:
Your contact info
your supervisors contact info
the location of the the work
the type of supervision you expect to have (group or individual, and how much)
You may need to volunteer some hours until you can gain some experience. CNM has an excellent Service Learning Program where you can gain college credit while exploring various agencies in the community. You will have to register for Psychology 296, which is a special topics course in Community Psychology. If the course is not offered this semester, or you cannot manage it, you are urged to explore the CNM Experiential Learning Website, where you can find a description of participating agencies.
If you do not yet have the skills you need to acquire a paying job in the field, you are encouraged to begin volunteer work immediately. Many of the agencies provide extensive training in exchange for volunteer hours afterward. Some of the best ones are:
Center for Dispute Resolution
- will provide training in basic listening and problem solving skills, and
an opportunity to put them to use.
AGORA will provide
training on the help lines, and is also a good resource for finding other
placements and experience. Volunteering on the help line will enable you to gain listening and
referral skills. You will become familiar with all the providers in
Albuquerque, while helping people in crisis.
If you have not yet found something suitable, feel free to contact NMAEN for more direction.