Postdoctoral Fellowship

Fellowship Overview

The USF Counseling Center is committed to training health service psychologists who are prepared to work independently as competent practitioners and leaders in integrated healthcare and university counseling settings. To this end, the postdoctoral fellowship offers the following training opportunities in a number of settings including:

1.  USF Counseling Center: fellows continue to master of the core competencies for health service psychologists, with an emphasis on those most relevant to university mental health settings.
2. USF St. Petersburg Wellness Center: fellows develop and/or enhance competencies for psychology practice in integrated healthcare settings, using the primary care behavioral health model of integrated care.
3. External Rotations: Partnering with community agencies, including Tampa General Hospital, Rogers Behavioral Health, and James Haley VA, fellows gain specialized training in additional healthcare settings.

These training opportunities are organized along two fellowship tracks:

1. Counseling Center (CC) Track (3 positions): The fellows on this track spends 100% time practicing in the USF Tampa Counseling Center and will have access to unique professional activities in this setting (e.g., supervision of graduate student clinicians, more intensive exposure to group therapy). Additionally, fellows will create their own plan to develop some specialization in an area of treatment focus (eating disorders, grief and loss, trauma, BIPOC students, etc.) and/or service administration (e.g., training, clinical administration, professional development, etc.). 
2. Dual Campus (DC) Track: The fellow on this track will operate at 60% capacity in the USF Counseling Center and 40% capacity at the USF St. Petersburg Campus Wellness Center providing both psychological intervention and behavioral health consultation.

During the fellowship, each postdoctoral fellow will accrue 2000 hours of supervised experience, which meets the postdoctoral professional experience requirements of licensure in Florida. Of these 2000 hours, 900 hours will be spent in activities related to direct client contact (e.g., individual and/or group therapy, behavioral health interventions, psychological testing, assessment activities, psycho-education, crisis interventions, case management, and consultation with other providers).

Work hours include some evening hours, typically once a week.

Past graduates of the program have obtained employment in various settings including university counseling centers, federal prisons, private practice groups, and Veterans' hospitals. The 2022-2023 fellowship year is scheduled to begin on August 1, 2022.