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Mind. Body.
Spirit. Health.

Associate Post Master’s Mental Health Fellowship – San Jose

Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center
Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center

The city of San Jose lies in the Santa Clara Valley about 50 miles southeast of San Francisco. With over 1 million residents, San Jose is a sprawling metropolitan area. The population is ethnically diverse, with large Asian and Hispanic communities that constitute three-fifths of the total population.

Nicknamed the capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose’s economy remains focused on high technology. Computer hardware design and manufacturing, software production, and Internet concerns are the major industries. The metro area retains its character with quirky attractions like the 160-room, maze-like Winchester Mystery House; a 120-acre flea market complete with ponies; and a larger-than-life Monopoly board. San Jose supports a variety of music, dance, and theatre organizations, including professional ballet and opera companies. Notable museums include the San Jose Museum of Art and the Tech Museum of Innovation, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian museum. Several sports teams call San Jose home including the Sharks NHL team.

Cradled by the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains and Diablo Range, San Jose offers a prime environment for outdoorsy residents, with its proximity to beaches along the California coast including Santa Cruz, Monterey and Carmel and state parks such as Henry Coe, and Big Basin. The city boasts a number of local municipal parks and flower gardens as well.

The Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center is staffed with 400 physicians and 3250 support staff and serves health plan members from South San Jose to Los Banos in the central valley. In addition to offering a full complement of inpatient and outpatient care, it features Regional Subspecialty Centers in Genetics, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sleep Medicine and Spine Care. Satellite clinics are located in Gilroy, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, and Watsonville.

Program Curriculum

Equity, Inclusion & Diversity

The Kaiser Permanente, San Jose Associate Post Master’s Mental Health Fellowship Program serves a culturally diverse area, and our patients are a reflection of it: The U.S. Census Bureau reports San Jose’s population in 2022 as composed of 34% White, 37% Asian, 31% Hispanic, 10% two or more races and 3% Black. About 40% of San Jose residents are immigrants living in the U.S.

We are committed to nurturing and integrating diversity training into every aspect of our Associate Post Masters Mental Health Fellowship Program by:

  • Providing fellows with opportunities to work with patients who represent a wide range of diversity, including ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socioeconomic status and abilities.
  • Placing a high value on encouraging and supporting fellows’ willingness and ability to engage in self-reflection and learning about their assumptions, privileges and habits that could have a negative impact on clinical interactions with patients who are different in significant ways from them.
  • Maintaining a consistent focus in clinical supervision on expanding fellows’ multicultural awareness and competence in the provision of psychotherapeutic services and by providing guidance and resources on topics related to diversity.
    Providing formal didactic training on a range of diversity topics (e.g., discovering and mitigating unconscious bias, respecting every voice, and cultivating a sense of inclusion and belonging in the workplace).
  • Encouraging fellows to participate in the Regional Mental Health Training Program EID Forums, which provide advanced training on topics related to cultural humility and competence and a safe space in which to reflect upon and discuss their varied experiences.

Didactic Training

Regularly scheduled weekly didactic seminars are organized and administered at the regional level for all KP Northern California mental health trainees. Post Master’s 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:

  • CPS/APS Mandatory Reporting
  • Risk Assessment and Safety Planning
  • Cultural Diversity
  • Supervision
  • LGBTQIA+ Considerations
  • Older Adult Considerations
  • ADHD Testing
  • Feedback Informed Care
  • Trauma Informed Practice
  • Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues in Psychotherapy

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 KP mental health trainees and staff at Kaiser 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.

Seminars and Meetings

Post Master’s Fellows are expected to attend weekly team/staff meetings and case consultation. During these meetings, fellows will practice creating a working hypothesis for a diagnosis and treatment plan and learn how to incorporate Feedback Informed Care (IFC) and incorporate symptom management in their plan. Additionally, fellows will learn how to align their client’s cultural background into their treatment plan.

Supervision

All fellows are supervised by licensed clinicians and are assigned to a primary supervisor, a secondary supervisor, and a group supervisor. Primary and secondary clinical supervisors meet with their assigned trainee one hour per week for individual face-to-face supervision. Thus, each intern has two hours of individual supervision per week. The group supervisor meets with the trainees in group supervision weekly for two hours. The primary and secondary supervisor are responsible for supervising the direct delivery of clinical services.

The primary supervisor takes the lead role in developing the trainee’s learning plan, monitoring their progress, and evaluating their training schedule. The primary supervisor is responsible for supervising the clinical work and completes the trainee evaluation after gathering input from the other supervisors and staff who have worked with the trainee.

During the two hours of face-to-face group supervision per week, trainees present cases. Trainees learn how to address treating their patients through a cultural framework including age, gender identity, cultural factors, family construct, work and school. Group supervision allows for vicarious learning and modeling. In addition, trainees gain experience presenting cases, as well as giving and receiving feedback. Such feedback experiences help them to develop both collegial and supervisory aspects of their professional identities as clinicians.

Community Partnership Program

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.

Tracks and Rotations

Adult Outpatient Mental Health Track

The Kaiser Permanente Post-Master’s Fellowship Program in Adult Psychiatry offers education and training in an integrated health care system. Trainees will work in an integrated health care setting, with a multidisciplinary team, providing empirically supported treatments to a wide variety of patients.

The fellowship will offer rotations in two areas, including Adult Outpatient Mental Health and Adult Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). Each rotation is designed to provide a breath of training experiences with the purpose of developing a generalist practitioner in mental health service.

Each intern has the opportunity to complete one 12-month track in Adult Psychiatry and one 6-month rotations over the course of the training year.

  • One 12-month track in Adult Outpatient Mental Health Department
  • One 6-month rotation in the Adult Intensive Outpatient Program.

Trainees will gain experience in being a part of the Adult Outpatient Mental Health team. The Adult Outpatient Mental Health department has opportunities for intake assessments, individual therapy, and group therapy.

Trainees are assigned cases from the broad and diverse patient population addressing needs related to the treatment of mood disorders, personality disorders, trauma, aging, adjustment, crisis, work or life stress, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorder, obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, bipolar disorders, sexual and gender identity disorders, and dissociative disorders.

The trainee will evaluate and diagnose mental health disorders based on DSM-5 and ICD-10 criteria. The trainee will develop treatment plans and learn how to articulate those plans to their patients. The trainee will utilize evidence-based interventions within a feedback informed care model (e.g., Tridium, AOQ).

The trainee will utilize both individual and group supervision for case formulation and treatment planning. The trainee will receive training in individual psychotherapy and group treatment. Training in evidence-based individual treatment will consist of providing individual therapy. Training in evidence-based group treatment will consist of co-facilitating groups under the supervision of licensed clinicians.

Adult Intensive Outpatient Program (Adult IOP) Rotation

This extraordinary training opportunity will allow trainees to focus on providing treatment to more acute and chronic patients. The Adult Intensive Outpatient Program is a two-week comprehensive program designed for patients that have a need for a higher level of care. It serves as a step-down program for patients who were recently psychiatrically hospitalized or also for patients who are needing further support due to higher need or severity of symptoms. Patients attend the program multiple times per week and engage in group therapy, psychiatric medication evaluation, and individual therapy.

Trainees are assigned cases from the broad and diverse patient population addressing needs related to the treatment of mood disorders, personality disorders, trauma, crisis, work or life stress, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorder, and bipolar disorders. Trainees will conduct intakes and provide evidence-based group therapy.

Training in evidence-based group treatment will consist of co-facilitating groups under the supervision of licensed Adult Intensive Outpatient therapists. It also involves twice daily meetings and consultation with small tight-knit, interdisciplinary treatment team. During this rotation, trainees will carry a smaller caseload and will focus a considerable part of their clinical time working with short-term crisis stabilization.

This rotation broadens and deepens clinical skills across all diagnoses with a very diverse group of patients while working closely with a supportive group of colleagues.

Schedule

  • Direct Patient Care: 20
  • Individual Supervision: 2 hours
  • Group Supervision: 2 hours
  • Didactic Training: 2 hours
  • Community Benefit Project: 1 hour
  • Team Meeting: 1 hour
  • Case Consultation: 1 hour
  • Non-Patient Care: 10 hours

Current Opportunities

Position Track(s)
Bilingual Spanish/Englsih Bilingual Spanish
Adult (2 Positions) Adult
Child and Adolescent (3 Positions) Adolescent, Child
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