Associate Post Master’s Mental Health Fellowship – Santa Clara

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.

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

• Treatment modality training: DBT, CBT, Solution Focused
• Addiction Medicine
• Behavioral Medicine Specialists in the Primary
• Care setting
• Assessment and Tx planning for Substance abuse
• Dual Diagnosis training
• Post-Partum Depression
• Intimate Partner Violence
• Working with Children and Adolescents
• Parenting skills
• Depression and Anxiety training
• Grief and loss
• Motivational Interviewing
• Brief therapy

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.

Along with the extensive regional and local didactic program and their weekly individual and group supervision, fellows participate in weekly and monthly staff meetings, treatment team meetings, and a case consultation group. Fellows also have the opportunity to participate in weekly Feedback Informed Care (FIC) case consultations.

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 on 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.

The Adult Psychiatry department is a multidisciplinary team composed of Psychiatrists, LCSWs, LMFTs, Psychologists, Post-Docs, ASWs, AMFTs and trainees. Adult Psychiatry is a collaborative, fast paced, dynamic, and integrated team that focuses on providing evidence-based treatment with an emphasis on quality of care and excellence. Even within the fast-paced environment, colleagues will always lend a hand and share resources with each other to ensure the team is supported, questions are answered, and patients receive the best possible care. The staff is flexible, supportive, and strives to offer a positive experience for our Post Master’s Fellows.

The Department of Adult Psychiatry at the Santa Clara medical center provides individual therapy, group therapy, and psycho-educational programs such as stress reduction, anxiety management and other classes. The Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) provides services to recently hospitalized individuals or people who would otherwise be at risk for hospitalization. Adult Psychiatry runs approximately 40 different groups per week, from Dialectic Behavioral Therapy to Job Stress. The members of the staff represent a variety of evidence-based theoretical orientations.

Post Master’s Fellows at our site will experience:

• Excellent opportunities for cross department collaboration and training
• The opportunity to work on a multidisciplinary team in an organization that promotes integrated health care
• 40+ groups offered to patients weekly in Santa Clara alone
• The opportunity to provide treatment to wide variety of individuals with a wide array of diagnoses and levels of acuity
• Trainings offered regionally, locally, and in the community by experts in their field of study

Clinical Services for Adult Post Master’s Fellows

A typical day for a Post-Master’s Fellow in Adult Psychiatry includes:

• conducting intake and return appointments with individual patients
• co-facilitating therapy groups
• writing assessments and treatment plans
• and documenting treatment encounters.

During a typical week, Fellows also engage in individual and group supervision, attend team meetings, and have opportunities for consultation with other staff members. Opportunities are also offered provided services in the Adult Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP).

Specialty tracks for Adult Post Master’s Fellows

Rotations include shadowing a wide variety of groups including:

• DBT
• mindfulness
• anxiety
• depression management
• treatment of bipolar disorders
• treatment of psychotic disorders
• coping skills
• trauma recovery
• Peri- natal/post-partum depression

Fellows will also have opportunities, when available, to rotate through Intensive Outpatient Services (IOP).

The Santa Clara Child Psychiatry clinic is a multi-disciplinary team composed of Psychiatrists, Psychologists, LMFTs, LCSWs, AMFTs, ASWs and Post-Docs. The staff is close-knit, supportive, and shares a wide variety of knowledge and areas of specialty with its trainees. The team is lively, energetic, and friendly! They enjoy working hard and celebrating with potlucks and other morale boosting activities.

The Department of Child Psychiatry at the Santa Clara medical center provides individual, group, family, and play therapy with children, and psycho-educational programs such as social skills and parent education. An Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) also provides services to recently hospitalized individuals or people who would otherwise be at risk for hospitalization. Child Psychiatry runs a variety of groups for preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school aged patients. The members of the staff represent a variety of theoretical orientations and rely heavily on evidenced-based approaches to treatment.

Post Master’s Fellows in Child Mental Health will have:

• Opportunities to collaborate with the San Jose Post Master’s Fellowship treatment team for trainings and supervision
• Exposure to clients ranging in age from 2 years old to young adults who represent a wide array of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, diagnoses, and levels of acuity
• The opportunity to participate in preschool, elementary, and high school aged groups and parenting classes.
• Trainings offered regionally, locally, and in the community by experts in their field of study

Clinical Services for Child Post Master’s Fellows

A typical day for a Post-Masters Fellow in Child Psychiatry includes:

• conducting intake appointments for new patients
• meeting with existing patients and their parents/caregivers for return appointments
• co-facilitation of groups
• writing assessments and treatment plans
• documentation of treatment encounter

Each week, Fellow’s will also experience individual and group supervision, team meetings, and opportunities for consultation with other staff members. Opportunities are also offered providing services in the Adolescent and Child IOP and Teen Addiction Medicine.

Specialty Tracks for Child Post Master’s Fellows

Rotations include shadowing a wide variety of groups for preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school aged patients, as well as parent education classes. Fellows will also have opportunities, when available, to rotate through Adolescent and Child Intensive Outpatient Services (IOP).

Santa Clara Addiction Medicine Recovery Services (AMRS) is a highly cohesive, team oriented, and supportive group of professionals who are passionate about providing services to individuals impacted by substance use disorders. The team is multidisciplinary and includes Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Registered Nurse Practitioners, LCSWs, LMFTs, ASWs, AMFTs, CADACs, Post-Docs, Medical Assistants. and support staff.

The AMRS team collaborates in providing treatment to its patients and meets daily to consult and partner in making treatment recommendations. The AMRS team is adaptable, flexible and willing to pitch in to ensure that all patients are being served. It is a team that both works hard and enjoys socializing, laughing and celebrating with each other. The training team for AMRS are available to provide consultation, education, mentorship and guidance to its Post Master’s Fellows. Being a part of the AMRS team is a lot like being a part of a big, tight-knit family!

The Addiction Medicine & Recovery Services program at the Santa Clara medical center provides outpatient services for individual affected by substance use disorders. The program offers both harm reduction and abstinence-based services that are provided based on the patients’ stage of change. SUD services include:

• individual case management
• group counseling
• psycho-education
• psychiatric services
• detox services
• and medication assisted treatment for adolescents and adults.

Several adjunct groups are offered to SUD patients, including:

• dual diagnosis
• DBT
• Relapse Prevention
• and Pain Management.

Services are also offered for the loved ones of individuals with substance use disorders which includes individual case management, psychoeducation, and groups.

AMRS contracts with outside treatment programs to assist patients in connecting with methadone-assisted treatment or residential drug and alcohol services when medically indicated. The staff relies heavily on Motivational Interviewing, CBT, DBT, Solution Focused, and 12-Step Facilitation modalities.

A typical day working as a Post Master’s Fellow in the AMRS program involves collaborating as part of multi-disciplinary team in providing structured, milieu-based, outpatient addiction medicine treatment to adolescents and adults and their loved ones.

Fellows will be exposed to a rich variety of services from seeing new patients for intake appointments, meeting with patients for return appointments, co-facilitating early recovery groups, teaching classes, attending daily case consultation meetings with staff, participating in therapeutic treatment review panels, diagnosing, assessing, treatment planning and documentation of progress notes. Fellows will also be provided with weekly individual supervision (2 hours), group supervision (2 hours) and trainings (2 hours).