Associate Post Master’s Mental Health Fellowship – San Francisco

The Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Fellowship serves a culturally diverse area and its patients reflect this level of diversity. We are housed in the Fillmore District, which has a long and rich history in San Francisco. Within our clinics, there are a significant number of patients who are Latinx and African American who greatly benefit from working with bilingual and bi cultural therapists. We regularly have Cantonese, Persian, and Farsi speaking patients who require therapy services in their native language, as well as patients who speak Thai, Mandarin and Russian. Our clinics also serve a significant LGBTQ+ population.

Kaiser Permanente is committed to offer its services in the most culturally diverse areas and benefits from a strong commitment to cultural humility when serving patients. In addition, for Kaiser Permanente, diversity is a high priority in the recruitment and retention of service providers.

We are a diverse staff always looking to increase our diversity and cultural competence. We encourage our trainees to utilize regional training and forums and to engage in Beyond Bias @ KP Learn.

Regularly scheduled weekly didactic seminars are organized and administered at the regional level for all Kaiser Permanente Northern California mental health trainees. Fellows are required to attend the two-hour weekly seminar, which focuses on aspects of clinical practice that the residents may not regularly encounter. Diversity issues are always integrated into seminar presentations.

Recent seminar topics included: Frontiers in Trauma Treatment; Advanced Risk Assessment; Updates in Substance Abuse Research & treatment; Advancements in Psychopharmacology; Cognitive Processing Therapy; Technology and Mental Health; Trans/Nonbinary Mental Health; Building a Better Brain through Exercise, Nutrition, Sleep and Stress Management; and Self-compassion.

Our Regional Mental Health Training Program also sponsors professional training courses for continuing professional development. These courses and presentations are offered at select times during the year for all Kaiser Permanente mental health trainees and staff at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Medical Centers. We bring in national experts and keynote speakers on a variety of cutting-edge topics in mental health treatment and research. Fellows are required to attend these monthly regional trainings in addition to the weekly didactic seminars. Training course dates and a list of speakers and topics can be found on the Regional Mental Health Training Programs website. In addition, many of these lectures are recorded and available under the continuing education lecture library.

Our Post Master’s Fellows attend:

• Weekly Feedback Informed Care consultation meetings
• IOP/CPY/EDO treatment team meetings
• Quarterly staff development day

All fellows are provided with two hours of weekly individual supervision with a primary and secondary supervisor, and two additional hours of weekly group supervision.

The primary and secondary supervisor is responsible for supervising the direct delivery of clinical services. This supervisor takes the lead role in monitoring the fellow’s progress, providing feedback on strengths and areas in need of further development, ensuring effective and safe patient care, adequate documentation, and evaluating training schedules.

Group supervision includes opportunities for fellows to present and discuss cases. Fellows learn how to address treatment through a cultural framework including ethnicity, language, age, gender and sexual identity. Group supervision allows for vicarious learning, practice with professional public clinical presentations, and learning how to give and receive feedback.

Reflecting Kaiser Permanente’s core commitment to mental health and wellness in our communities, each trainee will spend at least 32 hours during their training year on a Community Partnership Project that focuses on improving mental health in the local community beyond our Kaiser Permanente members.

The goal of these projects is to provide outreach to underserved populations in the community to promote healthy behaviors. Training Objectives include developing acquaintance with the tenets of Community Psychology, as well as gaining experience in community outreach, and the development of partnerships within internal and external systems.

IOP is a short term (2 week), group-centered program serving high acuity adult patients in a structured outpatient setting with a multidisciplinary team. The diagnoses of the patients participating vary greatly but frequently involve mood disorders, anxiety, life crises and trauma related disorders.

The program is held 3 days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) from 9am until about 12:30pm. Patients attend process and skill building/practice groups and meet with program psychiatrists for medication management. Interventions in the group setting include solution focused approaches, CBT, and DBT skills.

Fellows will join the IOP team as an individual and group clinician, in addition to carrying a caseload of patients who are seen in-person or virtually. Fellows will also have opportunity to co-facilitate groups geared toward a variety of topics, including symptom management, coping skills, relationship issues, and work stress.

IOP is a shorter term, group-centered program serving high acuity adolescent patients in a structured outpatient setting with a multidisciplinary team. The diagnoses of the patients participating vary greatly but frequently involve mood disorders, anxiety, crises and trauma and abuse. Patients may be at risk for hospitalization or be stepping down from an inpatient or residential setting. Patients attend process and skill building/practice groups and meet with program psychiatrists for medication management. Interventions in the group setting include solution focused approaches, CBT, and DBT skills.

Fellows will join the IOP team as an individual and group clinician, in addition to carrying a caseload of patients who are seen in-person or virtually. Fellows will also have opportunity to work with patients’ families. Fellows working in Child Psychiatry will also have a caseload of 5-8 clients (both in person and via telehealth).

The Eating Disorders (EDO) treatment program has outpatient, enhanced outpatient and EDIOP (for adults only) levels of care. The trainee in this program receives extensive training in the diagnosis and treatment of all types of EDOs across the age span.

Trainees are part of the inter-disciplinary treatment team and will have the opportunity to have individual, family, group and milieu experiences.

The Addiction Medicine and Recovery Services (AMRS) provides treatment for patients with Substance Use Disorders, as well as limited services for their family and friends. The program provides multiple levels of treatment including: Adult Intensive Day Treatment; Evening and/or Morning Intensive Outpatient care; Continuing Care; Adolescent/Family Substance Abuse/Substance Use Disorders, and Intensive Outpatient care; Co-Occurring Disorders treatment; Harm Reduction; and Spanish language treatment. Trainees working in this setting will be exposed to a variety of treatment modalities, including individual, couples, family and group therapy, psychoeducational groups, outpatient medical detoxification, and psychiatric services. AMRS provides Day Treatment services for every day of the year.

The San Francisco AMRS team is dedicated group of clinicians and support staff who work collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team setting. We rely on nearly daily group consultation in order to develop the best treatment plans and outcomes for our members and families who are suffering from the disease of addiction. In addition to an intensive abstinence-based program, we have developed a robust harm reduction program in which clinicians work collaboratively with the patient instead of dictating what they should do. We have a strength-based attitude towards our patients and celebrate their successes and remarkable transformations. We also are nonjudgmental and invite patients to consider other treatment options if they are struggling in their goals.