We aim to create a sense of belonging and community for our interns and faculty. We believe that as a community, we can learn from one another and become better equipped to provide care for our patients from across the Southeast.
Supervision
Our supervisors are strongly encouraged to incorporate discussions of ourselves, patients, and families in individual supervision. In particular, we encouraged our supervisors and interns to openly discuss aspects of their identity and how that may affect their interactions with patients and within the supervision process during supervision.
SOAR Seminar
Interns participate in monthly SOAR (Self-Observation, Assessment, and Reflection) Seminars throughout the year. The seminars include psychologists and trainees from across the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta system and cover a variety of topics associated with reflecting on our practices and our responsiveness to our patient populations. The seminars occur on Fridays at lunchtime.
Mentorship Program
The Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Doctoral Internship Mentorship Program exists to encourage interns’ professional growth and provide support for all interns as future health service psychologists, particularly in the context of diversity and inclusion factors. Each intern is matched with a faculty member outside of their primary track to serve as a mentor. Matches are based on interns’ areas of interest. In addition, interns can request to be matched on aspects of culture/identity such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, spiritual/religious background, parental status, ability status, and first-generation college graduate status.
Didactics
Every year, our didactics fluctuate; however, we typically invite presenters to speak on several topics such as Culturally Responsive Self-Care, Differences in Sex Development, and Neurodiversity-Affirming Practices.
Reflective Local Practice
We have adopted the Reflective Local Practice (Sandeen et al., 2018) model to encourage self-reflection, a common language of “hot spots,” “hidden spots,” and “soft spots” among trainees and supervisors, as well as to help interns learn about the Atlanta and Georgia community where our patients live. Interns are assigned to visit and experience locations within the area (e.g., Civil Rights Museum, Buford Highway international restaurants, Refuge coffee, which provides job training for refugees in the Clarkston community, and Sweet Auburn Market, a historic market opened in 1918).