Associate Post Masters
Mental Health Fellowship

The Child and Family Services is a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural team consisting of 3 psychiatrists, 9 psychologists, 11 LCSWs, and 4 LMFTs. A special feature of our department is its breadth of professional expertise and diversity of approaches to mental health care. Our staff view treatment from a range of theoretical orientations, which include Cognitive Behavioral, Psychodynamic, Developmental, Behavioral, Biological and Family System. We are committed to excellent patient care and continuously working to improve the ways we can best serve our patients.

The Child and Family Services view inter-discipline collaborations, regular consultation and on-going support as crucial part of our work ethics and moral. Our training team enjoys both guiding new clinicians in sharping their clinical skills and how to balance self-care and patient’s needs. Professionals on our team are capable of providing bilingual and bicultural services in Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin, and Spanish. Kaiser Permanente Oakland is a Regional Center for treatment, so presentations of patients are extremely varied, including socio-economic presentations, medical need, gender identity, and symptom presentations.

On the Child and Family Services Team, we specialize in working with children (through age 18) and families undergoing stress due to chronic or acute illnesses, transitions in the family, developmental issues of children, behavioral and social difficulties, parenting issues, and other mental health concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. We often work closely with the Department of Pediatrics, the Chemical Dependency Recovery Program, and the Department of Health Education to provide a continuum of care for our patients at the Oakland Medical Center.

We offer individual, family, group and crisis assessment and evaluation and treatment to children, adolescents and families. Additionally, we offer an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) to patients who have recently been hospitalized or who are at high risk for hospitalization.

We also work with an Eating Disorders Program in conjunction with Medicine. When necessary, Psychiatrists are available to provide psychotropic medication treatment to children and adolescents. We do not provide educational and learning disability evaluations, but we do advise parents on how to obtain these. We also do not provide Court Mandated Treatments or Custody Evaluations.

Presently in Oakland there is a bilingual (Spanish) specialty post-master training program for post master associates in the Adult Psychiatry Department since 2017.

Seventy percent of the trainees from this program are presently Kaiser Permanente bilingual employees in different Kaiser Permanente clinics; others decided to work in other agencies or in private practice.

This specialty program prepares future clinicians to provide evidenced based clinical services of high quality for both the Latino and the Anglo-Saxon population. Training components include individual supervision in Spanish, introduction and immersion in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques, Mindfulness based therapy interventions, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy learnt directly in both languages.

The program provides didactic trainings to aid the fellows with (a) population-specific issues like immigration trauma, acculturation and (b) culturally informed therapeutic approaches and modalities that are particularly effective with this population and (c) cultural sensitivity and humility (d) knowledge of terms and modalities directly in the foreign language that will be used by the fellow in session.

Professionals with expertise in treating the Latino population will be invited to hold seminars and didactic classes in Spanish.

Post-master fellows will also join the other more general classes in English. The main difference with the bilingual training program is that it is rooted in Spanish language and Hispanic culture: the individual (primary and possibly secondary) supervisions as well as some of the didactic trainings would be conducted in Spanish.

The target for caseload distribution is 30% monolingual Spanish speaking clients, 20% bilingual Spanish/English clients and 50% general Kaiser clients.

This Program aims to provide an outstanding training opportunity for future therapists invested in serving Spanish speaking patients in our community and address the increasing need for culturally sensitive, bilingual skilled therapists for the Latino population.

Besides training in the bilingual (Spanish) specialty, post master trainees will also be able to participate and train in other specialty tracks, like the Trauma Treatment Track, the Depression Treatment Track or the Couple Treatment Track, depending on their interests.

The fellow in this position will be placed in the behavioral medicine service, located within Kaiser’s primary care facilities. Prior behavioral medicine experience is preferred, but not required. The position is primarily spent in face-to-face or virtual patient care. Appointments are 30 minutes every 2-3 weeks, offering 6 sessions at a time (with flexibility based on need of the patient), in line with the behavioral consultation model of mental health.

Fellows will gain breath of experience in assessing and treating many different mild to moderate psychological presentations, including but not limited to psychological stress from a medical condition, chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety disorders, specific phobia, depression, and grief, among other presentations. The fellows case load can be adjusted based on their clinical interests.

There is opportunity to run group therapy including ACT for chronic illnesses and CBT for Health Anxiety. Supervisor modalities are primarily 3rd wave therapies, such as CBT, mindfulness-based CBT, behavioral therapy, and ACT. Fellows will learn rapid assessment for a large breadth of lower acuity psychological disorders while providing behavioral and cognitive interventions. Emphasis is placed on interdisciplinary care and consultation with the behavioral medicine team.

Intensive services at Kaiser Permanente Oakland includes two primary programs: Clinical Case Management (CCM) and the Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). Clinical Case Management provides mental health treatment and case management services to people experiencing severe and chronic mental health conditions. The intensive Outpatient program is a short-term stabilization program for people experiencing a mental health crisis or stepping down from inpatient hospitalization.

The post master’s fellow position will primarily be part of the Clinical Case Management Program and will include one day a week in the Intensive Outpatient Program.

As part of the Clinical Case Management team, the post master’s fellow will provide individual clinical case management and co-facilitate groups, in addition to participating in supervision, trainings, and team meetings.

The post master’s fellow will be part of Wellness Club, a Clinical Case Management group program for people with serious mental health challenges including experiences of psychosis, bipolar, severe depression, and complex trauma who are either stepping down from inpatient hospitalization, experiencing a mental health crisis, or having a first episode of psychosis. The group includes learning and practicing skills, building social support and connection, engaging in creative expression through art therapy, clinical case management and medication management to support mental health stabilization and recovery.

Clinical Case Managers facilitate additional skills and support groups, including CBT for Psychosis, Affect Regulation for Psychosis, Compassion and Action, Life Skills, Wellness Graduates among others. Clinical Case Management groups utilize a variety of evidence-based practices including Wellness Recovery Action Planning, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

The post-master fellow will carry a case load of individual patients. Individual Clinical Case Management work will include:

• Assessment and Diagnosis
• Case Formulation
• Providing evidence-based treatment
• Connecting with needed resources within Kaiser and in the community.
• Coordinating care and services.
• Family education and support.

The Clinical Case Management team consists of a core multidisciplinary group of providers with years of experience and expertise in training, developing innovative programs, and providing clinical care to support people in the process of recovery.

Kaiser Permanente’s first comprehensive Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Program aimed at reducing high risk behaviors and increasing quality of life for patients with severe emotion regulation problems. Postmaster fellows can be trained in DBT as part of this specialized track.

• Direct Patient Care: 20 hours
• Non-Patient Care: 12 hours
• Individual Supervision: 2-3 hour
• Group Supervision: 2 hours
• Didactic Training: 1 hours
• Diversity Seminar: 1.5 hour (not in July or August)
• Community Benefit Project: various (total of 32 hr/training year)
• Specific Team meeting (IOP/ADHD/DBT…):1-2 hours

Direct Patient Care: 20 hours max per week; it can be a lot less, depending on readiness of Fellow

• Non-Patient Care: 12 hours (notes, studying, see below, etc.)
• Individual Supervision: 2 hours weekly, in Spanish and English
• Group Supervision: 2 hours (English) weekly
• Didactic Training: 3 hours (classes in English and in Spanish) weekly on most months
• Cultural Conversations: 1-hour weekly
• 1:1 mentorship to support bicultural (Spanish) clinician growth
• 1-hour biweekly
• 1:1 general EID mentorship: 1 hour weekly (this is on top of supervision and specialized mentorship)
• Case consultation with licensed clinicians and psychiatrist (on top of supervision of any kind): 2 hours per month
• Community Benefit Project: 32 h per year

• Neuroscience of Depression Disorders
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for the treatment of PTSD and other trauma-based disorders
• Assessment and treatment of OCD
• Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• Risk Assessment and levels of care
• Psychotic Disorders
• Spirituality in Psychotherapy
• Shame and Self Compassion
• Use of Mindfulness in psychology
• Assessment of Eating disorders
• Introduction to Internal Family Systems

Some additional meetings/consultation may be included in other specialty tracks

The below resources are also available for all mental health trainees

Regional Live Seminars are also offered to trainees 

Regional Continuing Education lectures available for current Kaiser Permanente employees   

Additional Specialty Didactics for this Track

• ADHD
• Autism/PDD
• Child & Adolescent Development
• Child and Family Assessment & Clinical Documentation (include developmental history)
• DSM IV Overview & Orientation to Clinical Theories
• Eating Disorders
• Family Therapy
• Meaning & Metaphors in Talk Therapy
• Mood & Psychotic Disorders
• Neuro-Atypical presentation
• OCD
• PTSD/Acute Trauma
• Risk Assessment
• Self-Harming/Mutilation Safety and Management
• Social Worker Roles: case management/clinical setting
• Temperament & Temperament based behavioral therapy & Preschoolers/basic parenting
• Treatment Planning, Collaborating Care, The 50-min hour
• Working with “acting-out” children and adolescents
• Working with Systems, including Urban/Domestic Violence issues

Additional Specialty Didactics for this Track

• Terapia Cognitiva Conductual
• La Cultura Cura
• Intervenciones para el trastorno de estrés postraumático
• Terapia Dialectico Conductual
• Terapia cognitiva para trastorno de ansiedad
• Inmigración y aculturación