Predoctoral Internship Program in Professional Psychology
Rotations
The Primary Rotation is Lake Correctional Institution’s Mental Health Unit located just 30 minutes outside Orlando, Florida. Typically, 4 out of 5 days are spent at Lake Correctional Institution where interns work in our 180 bed inpatient Mental Health Unit. It houses our Crisis Stabilization Unit, our Transitional Care Unit, Infirmary beds as well as the Corrections Mental Health Institute (CMHI) where patients are admitted by court order and may additionally be court ordered to receive psychotropic medications. Our court commitments to CMHI, our forced medication and civil commitment hearings are all held at the Mental Health Unit. Interns may work with incarcerated individuals classified as minimum, medium, close custody and maximum custody (including Close Management and Death Row). These patients suffer from a wide array of disorders ranging from serious chronic mental illness and progressive disorders to transient crisis based disturbances. The more serious cases often require in-depth psychological assessments and diagnostic work-ups due to their complexity.
The Secondary Rotations are included to augment the intern’s exposure to a wide range of patient populations, supervisors and correctional settings. Interns will spend one day a week at one of these Secondary Rotations during at least two quarters of the internship year. These rotations will include working in the outpatient setting at Lake CI, working with women at one of our female institutions and learning the reception process, at either CFRC or Lowell CI. During the remaining quarter(s) of the year interns may be able to repeat a rotation, take on additional work in the inpatient unit at Lake CI or plan an alternative rotation with the Training Director’s approval.
Lake Correctional Institution Outpatient Service is located in Clermont in the same building as the Inpatient Mental Health Unit. Interns will spend at least one day a week for one quarter of the year in Outpatient Services. This will afford them the opportunity to work with male inmates in an outpatient setting where the patients are able to work a regular job each day and come in once a week for individual or group therapy. There are over 700 outpatient inmates at Lake CI who are on psychotropic medications and receiving individual therapy.
Hernando Correctional Institution is a female institution located in Brooksville, Florida. It will provide the intern with outpatient treatment experience with adult and youthful female patients. Individual and group treatment services, as well as crisis management and assessment are all essential here.
Central Florida Reception Center (CFRC) is located in Orlando, Florida and is the area’s receiving facility for newly arriving male inmates. Here interns will learn about the correctional intake process which incorporates group screenings for major mental illness, developmental disabilities and suicidality. For some patients, additional psychological testing and in-depth clinical interviews are necessary for the purpose of determining mental health services needs. CFRC also provides the opportunity to work with end-of-life issues and with seriously medically ill patients at their palliative care unit.
Lowell Correctional Institution is located on the northern edge of Ocala, Florida. It is an exceptionally large female institution that is scheduled to soon grow to be the largest in the country. It serves as the receiving facility for female inmates. Interns may gain their experience in the reception process here. Training opportunities include the screening and assessment of women entering the corrections system, assessment of psychological emergencies and provision of crisis interventions as well as ongoing individual and group outpatient services with women.
