The Mental Health Training Program (MHTP) is excited to announce that two of our independent doctoral internship programs and one doctoral internship consortium have recently achieved accreditation by the American Psychological Association (APA)*. The newly accredited San Rafael doctoral internship program, Roseville doctoral internship program, and Silicon Valley doctoral internship consortium, which is comprised of the Fremont, San Jose, and Santa Clara training programs, join our five other accredited MHTP doctoral internships in clinical psychology.
In the second half of 2023, five committed medical center training teams, in collaboration with MHTP leadership, embarked on the arduous journey of seeking APA accreditation for their respective individual doctoral internship programs in clinical psychology. At minimum, the process of obtaining APA accreditation for doctoral and postdoctoral training programs takes two years and many hours of planning, coordination, and teamwork.
Kaiser Permanente San Rafeal’s training team, led by Drs. Thu Pham and Carl Oddo, and Kaiser Permanente Roseville’s training team, led by Drs. Emilio Licea and Ladan Khatibijah, both began this process from a completely blank planning stage. Both programs applied for and obtained membership with the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) toward the end of 2023 and welcomed their first internship cohorts with the 2024-25 training year.
The Silicon Valley doctoral internship consortium was already an APPIC member in 2023 and was initially comprised of the Kaiser Permanente San Jose training team, led by Dr. Dina Alkhoury, and the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara training team, led by Dr. Julie Johnston. Before taking the first step toward pursuing APA accreditation, the Silicon Valley Consortium invited Kaiser Permanente Fremont’s training team into the fold. Fremont’s training team, led by Dr. Shannon Stovall and later joined by Dr. Shannon Tran, welcomed their first internship cohort with the 2024-25 training year alongside their established fellow consortium members.
*Questions related to a program’s accredited status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation: Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation American Psychological Association 750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002 / Phone: (202) 336-5979 / E-mail: apaaccred@apa.org / Web: www.apa.org/ed/accreditation
Contributed by: Matthew Holland, PsyD
