Postdoctoral Residency – Union City

We are committed to nurturing and integrating diversity training into all aspects of our postdoctoral residency program by:

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.

Regularly scheduled weekly didactic seminars, formerly held at the consortium level, are now organized, and administered regionally for all KP NorCal postdoctoral residents. Residents are required to attend a two-hour weekly virtual seminar, which focuses on developing competencies and expertise in clinical areas most relevant to their day-to-day work.

Our Regional Mental Health Training Program 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. Residents are required to attend these monthly seminars. Regional seminar dates and a list of speakers and topics can be found on the Regional Mental Health Training Programs website. In addition, many of the presentations are recorded and available under the continuing education lecture library webpage.

Residents attend weekly department team meetings and weekly staff case conferences to consult on challenging cases and to learn how to incorporate Feedback Informed Care (FIC) in their practice.

Residents also attend group supervision to present cases to their postdoctoral peers. Residents gain experience giving and receiving feedback which helps them to develop the collegial and supervisory aspects of their professional identities as psychologists.

Residents participate in an Office Hours meeting led by the local training director which focuses on helping them to acculturate to the Kaiser Permanente organization. Topics include administrative issues and professional development, as well as general support.

All postdoctoral residents are supervised by licensed psychologists and are assigned to a primary supervisor and a secondary supervisor. The clinical supervisors meet with their assigned resident one hour per week for individual face-to-face supervision. Thus, each resident has two hours of individual supervision per week.

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.

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 patient members. Projects may include presentations on mental health topics or career mentoring in such settings as schools/universities, faith communities, and other organizations dedicated to assisting those in need.

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

All residents complete psychological testing as part of their training program with our Neuropsychologist. Four batteries are required over the course of the 12 months, but residents can complete more if desired. Primary referral questions relate to ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children and adults. More complex neuropsychological assessments are also available. Residents attend weekly group supervision to consult on assessment cases.

Each resident is required to undertake a program evaluation project during their training year. The project is selected based upon the resident’s interests and skill set and should fall within the regular scope of departmental services.

It may involve collecting and analyzing data to improve administrative operations, or a quality improvement project aimed at improving or assessing a treatment program or process. Examples include developing and evaluating a treatment group, intake procedure or other new programming; evaluating factors associated with treatment outcomes; or a needs assessment of a service that may be enriched by psychological consultation. Residents meet with the program evaluation supervisor as a group regularly over the course of the training year to review progress on their projects.

Residents on the Adult Services Track will work on a multi-disciplinary team to treat patients, 18 years and older, for a wide range of diagnoses and presenting problems.  Residents will learn how to collaborate with patients for treatment planning purposes and gain proficiency utilizing evidence-based interventions within a feedback informed care framework.  Residents in Adult Services will have the opportunity to provide individual therapy and group therapy to adults with a variety of clinical presentations. Specialty rotations tailored around individual residents’ interests are available during the year and may include the following topic areas:

• Individual Outpatient Program
• Eating Disorders Treatment
• Gender Care
• Addiction Medicine
• Trauma Treatment
• Older Adult Population

The South East Bay provides generalist outpatient care to child and adolescent patients, including intake, diagnosis, treatment planning, intervention, and termination. Outpatient providers incorporate consultation and integration with medication management, case management, crisis services, medical and hospital consultation services, and more. A resident in the South East Bay may also incorporate one or more of the following specialty clinical experiences as a rotation during their training year:

• Individual Outpatient Program
• Eating Disorders Treatment
• Gender Care
• Addiction Medicine
• Trauma Treatment