Postdoctoral Residency – Redwood City

• Providing residents with opportunities to work with patients who represent various aspects of diversity, including age, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, values, and lifestyle.
• Placing a high value on residents’ willingness to engage in self-reflection, and supporting the exploration of attitudes, beliefs and therapeutic postures that could impact clinical interactions.
• Maintaining a consistent focus in clinical supervision on expanding residents’ multicultural awareness and competence in the provision of psychotherapeutic services and providing guidance, training, and resources on topics such as mitigating unconscious bias, respecting every voice, and cultivating a sense of inclusion and belonging in the workplace.
• Residents are encouraged to participate in the Regional Mental Health Training Program EID Committee’s advanced trainings on topics related to cultural sensitivity and competence along with a forum to reflect on and discuss their varied experiences in a safe environment.

Clinic services demonstrating our EID commitment:

• La Clinica Latina, a program dedicated to providing linguistic (Spanish) and culturally informed services to Latinx-identified patients
• Journeys group (transgender/questioning support)
• Gender Affirming Parenting class
• Gender Affirming Teen class
• Black Wellness group
• Women of Color Empowerment group

Our Regional Mental Health Training Program (MHTP) also sponsors seminars for continuing professional development. The seminars are offered at select times during the year for all KP mental health trainees and staff at Kaiser Northern California Medical Centers. We bring in local and national experts on a variety of cutting-edge topics in mental health treatment and research. Regional seminar dates and a list of speakers and topics can be found on the Regional MHTP website. In addition, many of the presentations are recorded and available under the continuing education lecture library webpage.

• Group supervision with the postdoctoral training cohort which includes case consultation and discussion of professional development topics. Residents gain experience giving and receiving feedback which helps them to develop the collegial and supervisory aspects of their professional identities as psychologists.
• Case consultation with staff associated with the training track (e.g., Adult team, Child team, etc.)
• Training in supervised supervision wherein residents co-facilitate group supervision for practicum externs over the course of the training year.

Telehealth Training:

Kaiser Permanente has greatly expanded its virtual presence, which will allow residents to fully train and practice in a variety of trailblazing platforms in telemedicine to provide accessible mental health care.

The primary and secondary supervisors are responsible for overseeing the direct delivery of clinical services. The primary supervisor takes a lead role in developing the resident’s learning plan, monitoring their progress, and evaluating their training schedule. The primary supervisor is also responsible for completing the resident’s evaluation after gathering input from other supervisors and staff who may have provided supplementary supervision during rotations or while co-facilitating groups with the resident.

The goal of this project is to provide outreach to underserved populations to promote health and advancement. Anchors for the project include developing alliances with individuals and/or systems to improve the lives of those served; providing education and training based on relevant empirical literature; and presenting relevant outcomes data to partnership stakeholders. Residents will meet with the Community Partnership supervisor to assist with placement and the development of a project.

• MHTP EQI Lab Program Evaluation: projects are guided by quality improvement goals that extend beyond local, site-specific programs. Projects may focus on outcomes of training program models, the impact of MHTP specialty training, the effectiveness of MHTP-sponsored treatment programs, or the  throughout the training year to coordinate MHTP program evaluation projects and monitor progress. During these weekly lab meetings, interns receive consultation from MHTP clinical supervisors to ensure that their incorporation of outcomes measures into clinic workflows. The EQI Lab holds weekly, 1-hour meetings projects are relevant to current clinical work, integrated into clinical care, and appropriate for dissemination.
• MHTP Journal Club: research training consists of reviewing and critically evaluating research within a select subfield of psychology and developing a didactic tool for other clinicians to use to augment their clinical practice during the delivery of services within KP Mental Health. The primary expectation for interns in the Journal Club is to prepare brief presentations that take place during the last month of each quarter. The Journal Club holds monthly, 1-hour meetings in addition to weekly presentations during the last month of every quarter.

Our Adult Psychiatry team, which consists of psychologists, LMFTs, and LCSWs, provides outpatient services to residents of Palo Alto, San Mateo, and neighboring cities. The population served is diverse in terms of ethnicity, socio-economic status, educational attainment, and presenting problems / symptomatology.

Common diagnoses include major depression, peri- and postpartum depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD and trauma-related disorders, bipolar disorder, and OCD. Our clinic offers specialized therapy groups and services to address these disorders. Our clinic offers a gender support group for individuals experiencing gender dysphoria.

Training via co-facilitation of therapy groups is designed to enhance and expand a resident’s knowledge and proficiency in the use of evidence-based interventions such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT).

Our Adult Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) provides crisis stabilization for patients who are either (1) highly likely of becoming hospitalized due to severe SI, HI, and/or grave or (2) being discharged from a 5150/5250 and in need to a transition into normative functioning. Our IOP team is comprised of psychologists, therapists, nurse practitioners, and case/social workers. Residents attend frequent meetings with the team, evaluate new patients for risk, co-facilitate therapy groups, lead a psychoeducation group, assist with documenting involuntary hospitalizations when needed and as appropriate to their level of training, and discharge patients whose symptoms are in sufficient remission.

Common diagnoses include major depression, peri- and postpartum depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD and trauma-related disorders, bipolar disorder, and OCD. Our clinic offers specialized therapy groups and services to address these disorders. Our clinic offers a gender support group for individuals experiencing gender dysphoria.

Training via co-facilitation of therapy groups is designed to enhance and expand a resident’s knowledge and proficiency in the use of evidence-based interventions such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT).

Residents will be given flexibility in tailoring a training plan with the ability to focus training on specific treatments (e.g., trauma, DBT, etc) or generalize their skills across a large base of modalities.

Residents also have an array of therapy groups they can co-facilitate such as Teen IOP, CBT and ACT-based skills groups, and parent management training groups. An exceptional opportunity associated with this track is a rotation providing consultation-liaison services in our Pediatrics department. Residents typically complete between 2 to 3 mental health assessments per week. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry providers operate within the context of a multidisciplinary team consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, LCSWs, LMFTs, and case managers.