Psychological Services Center & Laboratory Schools
The PSC is a unit within the Dept. of Psychology at ISU dedicated to service to the community, research and the training of graduate students. Services provided cover a wide range: from individual assessment and treatment at the Center to home-based or school-based assessment and treatment; and from group counseling at the Center to informal classroom or parent education groups or services provided in conjunction with community agencies. Under the umbrella organization are five services: The Autism Service, the School-Problems Service, The Child & Adolescent Intervention Service, The College Learning Assessment Service, and The Academic Intervention & Consultation Service. The intern receives training and supervision in several of the different services, depending upon their interests, providing assessment, consultation, and prevention/intervention for school-aged children, their families and their schools. There are opportunities to provide supervision and engage in research as well. In addition, the intern provides school psychological services, with an emphasis on system-level consultation, to the University's two laboratory schools. The students in the laboratory schools are diverse with regard to race, ethnicity, and culture and enjoy an environment rich in innovative academic practices. The administrators have recently begun using AIMSweb, a computerized system to monitor students using curriculum-based measurement. They have implemented a three-tiered model for addressing reading concerns and will be more systematically approaching intervention for math next year. Pre-service student teachers and their supervising faculty often request consultation regarding students' academic and social-emotional concerns.
Interns at the Psychological Services Center spend the majority of their time providing services within the clinic services and their community outreach programs. The successful applicant will have a strong interest in research and well-developed skills in at least one of the following areas: individual therapy, academic intervention, comprehensive assessment, systems-level consultation, or behavioral interventions (especially those typically utilized for children with autism). At least two days a week will be spent in the schools, one of which is located in the same building as the PSC. Archival data is available for use in original research as well as current client's if using a case study or small N design. The intern has access to real-time supervision through the use of one-way mirrors and video-monitoring. Often interns co-implement services with one of seven university faculty holding doctorates in counseling, child clinical, or school psychology. There is a large variety of testing instruments available as well as computer equipment. The intern receives a stipend of $18,500. The intern's workweek of 40 hours is individually arranged, but typically occurs 8AM - 6 PM and follows the university calendar.
SUPERVISORS
Brenda Huber, PhD, ABPP is the primary supervisor for interns in the laboratory schools. She serves half-time as the Director of the Psychological Services Center at Illinois State University and half-time as ISPIC's Training Director. In addition to supervising others, she engages in clinical work informed by developmental, cognitive-behavioral, and systems theories. She began her career as a middle school language arts and communications teacher. After acquiring a master's degree in counseling from Purdue University, she worked in therapeutic foster care before returning to graduate school to study the relationship between attachment organization, emotion regulation, and social-information processing. Having served as a school psychologist and an outpatient therapist, she is currently the Project Director of a four-year grant to develop a system of care for children's mental health services in Livingston County. Her interests include developing the role of the doctoral-level school psychologist in school settings, promoting culturally competent and socially responsible service delivery, and exploring avenues by which research and practice can influence public policy development.
W. Joel Schneider, PhD, provides supervision to interns in CLAS, where they conduct comprehensive assessments of college students suspected of having psychiatric or learning problems interfering with their academic performance. He grew up in southern California and learned to speak Spanish while living in Argentina (1990-1992). He earned a BS in Psychology from UC Berkeley (1994) and a Masters Degree (1999) and Ph.D. (2003) in Clinical Psychology from Texas A&M University. His dissertation evaluated the Transtheoretical Model of Change in the context of a longitudinal outcome study of the effectiveness of group marital therapy. At Illinois State University, he is a faculty member with a dual appointment to the Clinical/Counseling Psychology program and the Quantitative Psychology program. His scholarly work attempts to bridge humanistic and quantitative interests by finding methods of helping clinicians use quantitative assessment data to help individuals understand themselves better. He asserts that humans are story-telling creatures; who we are is most clearly seen in the story we tell about ourselves. He believes that a good assessment helps individuals revise and refine this story in ways that empower them to take action to live fuller, richer lives. Much of his scholarly work has been focused on designing computer programs that help clinicians transform assessment quantitative data into meaningful components of a narrative understanding of individuals.
Video Clip: Dr. Huber describes various training opportunities available at the PSC. Note: It may take a few minutes to download.