Placement.

The purpose of this assessment task is to provide you with an opportunity to develop skills in performing psychology assessments, interventions, and associated activities, under the supervision of Clinical Psychologists/Psychology Board-Approved Supervisors. By the end of this unit, you will demonstrate Level 2 competence in nine core competencies that represent critical capabilities and attributes for effective psychological practice. Competencies 1 - 8 are specified by AHPRA and Competency 9 is a requirement of the Master of Clinical Psychology Course. Level 2 competence represents the competency expected to be reached before a supervisee can progress to their external placement for Clinical Practice 3.

In addition to the core competencies, you will develop skills in psychological assessment to meet APAC requirements, specifically: Memory Assessments (WRAML or WMS) - administration, scoring, and interpretation and a Personality Assessment (PAI, NEO, or Jessness) – scoring and interpretation. One of our Clinical Psychologists/Board-Approved Supervisors must sign off on your competencies for the specified assessments listed above.

Your Placement Agreement, Mid-Placement Review, and End-of-Placement Review must be signed by yourself, your Primary Supervisor, and the Placement Coordinator and uploaded to Moodle for assessment. If you have not met all required competencies (including all nine core competencies and the APAC assessment requirements) by your End-of-Placement Review you may be provided with a further opportunity to meet these competencies. However, this is up to the discretion of the Unit Coordinator in consultation with the Head of Course. It can be useful to discuss competencies with your Primary Supervisor before your Mid-Placement and End-of-Placement Reviews, to identify any areas where you are not demonstrating the expected level of competency and develop a Support Plan to address areas where you are 'not on track' before your End-of-Placement Review. To pass the unit and progress to Clinical Practice 3, all Level 2 competencies must be met.

Log of Clinical Practice (Logbook). You must submit your log of practice hours signed by your Primary Supervisor that details your total number of direct client activity hours, individual supervision hours, group supervision hours, and associated placement activities. You are also required to submit all of your completed supervision forms from individual and group supervision. All supervision entries in your log of practice hours must have a corresponding supervision form signed by yourself and the supervisor who provided the supervision.

Competencies to be demonstrated to pass End-of-Placement Review (Pass/Fail):

1. Knowledge of the Discipline: The student demonstrates using multiple knowledge sources and can independently apply knowledge to inform evidence-based practice.

2. Ethical, Legal, and Professional Matters: The student demonstrates appropriate awareness and action to ethical issues and higher levels of client risk by asking appropriate follow-up questions with minimal supervision. The student keeps timely and adequate client records.

3. Psychological Assessment and Measurement: The student demonstrates, with minimal supervision, accurate scoring, and interpretation of a complex assessment (typically addressing the question of ADHD or ASD) and completes a brief and relevant structured report addressing a broad range of domains of functioning. With their supervisor’s guidance, the student demonstrates differential diagnosis skills, integrated opinions, and recommendations consistent with the assessment results.

4. Intervention Strategies: With minimal supervision, the student demonstrates an appropriate balance between purposeful therapeutic tasks and maintaining rapport. The student shows a proper balance between providing appropriate direction and following the client’s lead. The student is respectful and flexibly chooses approaches that fit the client’s current needs. The student can work systemically and collaboratively with all clients with a range of issues (e.g., working with child & parent issues). The student's interventions are respectful, collaborative, flexible, purposeful, and systemic with minimal supervisor guidance.

5. Research and evaluation: The student demonstrates the use of a broad range of methods to assess interventions' effectiveness and discusses the findings with clients to inform practice with appropriate supervision. The student demonstrates accountability to outcomes by consistent methods to measure the effectiveness of interventions.

6. Communication and interpersonal skills. The student demonstrates the ability to communicate clearly, concisely, and respectfully with a range of audiences, and in written and verbal form, with some supervision. The student can self-identify when they need to adapt their communication to the situation and do so with minimal supervision.

7. Working with People from diverse groups: The student demonstrates self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-directed learning to modify their work with people from diverse groups with help from a supervisor.

8. Practice across the lifespan: The student demonstrates competency in working with children, adolescents, and adults to complete more complex interventions and assessments.

9. Response to Supervision: The student demonstrates active development in their strengths and growth areas through supervision. The student self-assessment of their competency levels is accurate. The student actively seeks opportunities to seek feedback on their practice.

Developing assessment competency in the following (Pass/Fail):

1. WISC-V Assessment - administration, scoring and interpretation 

2. Memory Assessments (WRAML or WMS) - administration, scoring, and interpretation;

3. Personality Assessment (PAI, NEO, or Jessness)– scoring and interpretation.

Log of Clinical Practice (Pass/Fail). You must submit your log of practice hours signed by your Primary Supervisor that details your total number of direct client activity hours, individual supervision hours, group supervision hours, and associated placement activities. Entries related to direct client activity hours must include the client's initials, age, gender and description of the service provided in sufficient detail to match your entry to the contact recorded in the electronic appointment diary (Cliniko). You are also required to submit all of your completed supervision forms from individual and group supervision, in chronological order, and upload them to Moodle as one document. All supervision entries in your log of practice hours must have a corresponding supervision form signed by yourself and the supervisor who provided the supervision.

This task is a presentation of a 10-minute video recording of you conducting an intervention in the clinic. In the recording, you should demonstrate the appropriate use of a range of intervention skills at Level 2 competency. You also need to present a critique of your video. The video file is to be saved to your student folder on the Wellness Centre Drive and reviewed with your Primary Supervisor. The critique, signed by your Primary Supervisor along with an assessment of skill (pass/fail/resubmit) is to be uploaded to Moodle.

Primary Supervisor's feedback and grade (Pass/Fail): Students are not expected to conduct a perfect session but are to demonstrate a Level 2 competency and provide an accurate reflection of the intervention. The student submits the supervisor's signed feedback with the grade and the student's reflection on the intervention.

Level 2 competency for Intervention: The student demonstrates awareness of balance issues between task and process and can self-correct with supervisor guidance (e.g., switch between purposeful tasks and rapport building). The student seeks client feedback.

The student's reflection on their intervention should include: Brief description of the video (e.g., 12 y.o. girl, CBT intervention for anxiety, excerpt from Session #5); Strengths; Areas for improvement / what did not go well; What could be done differently to improve practice.

In the reflective journal, you explore your own developing professional identity as a psychologist and the relationship between your experiences on placement and your changing sense of professional self. It is expected that you would write 300-400 words per week across the term. A new journal entry is to be submitted in Moodle each week for feedback.

You must pass each of the 12 journal submissions to pass the Reflective Practice Assignment (Pass/Fail). Each journal submission must demonstrate self-reflection on your practice as a psychologist, including your reflections on what you are learning about your own practice through the placement experience, your emerging strengths, and areas for development. Journal submissions should include some self-reflection on both the tasks and process of working with clients and other stakeholders. If any journal submission is lacking in self-reflection on your practice, the Unit Coordinator may require you to resubmit to demonstrate self-reflection before the journal submission is passed.

This is a case presentation done in class during Group Supervision time. You will have a total of 20 minutes for your presentation, which should be around 10 minutes of you presenting your case study, followed by 10 minutes of questions and discussion time. The case can be any client you have seen in the Psychology Wellness Centre. The presentation should include relevant referral information, details of presenting concerns, your domains of functioning assessment, completing a formulation with the group and discussing differential diagnosis (where relevant), presenting your initial formulation (written prior to the group formulation activity), and your plan for assessment or intervention.

The Case Presentation (Pass/Fail). In order to achieve a grade of Pass, the presentation needs to include:

• Relevant referral information (including client initials or pseudonym, gender, age, referral source, and the reason for referral)
• Completed Domains of Functioning Assessment (with sufficient information to complete a case formulation)
• Case formulation (completed with the group) / differential diagnosis (where relevant)
• Summary of Assessment or Intervention to Date

The case report is a de-identified client report completed on the placement. The report must be accompanied by the cover page template and follow the described format. The placement supervisor needs to sign off on the report (as it belongs to the placement site and all identifying details need to remain confidential to the placement site). The placement supervisor takes responsibility for the report within the agency. However, as the report is required for the assessment of competencies, the student will need to submit a de-identified copy of the report to Moodle. For the purpose of this assessment, the placement supervisor must sign the coversheet to indicate that the report is appropriately de-identified to be submitted for the assessment.

The case report is a pass/fail assessment of 3000 words. To pass this assessment, students must achieve an overall mark of 70 out of 100. The report will include a Comprehensive Needs Assessment, Opinions, Intervention Plan/Recommendations, Evaluation, and Reflection sections, and be presented using appropriate Formatting and Referencing as described in the Assessment Criteria.

Case Report (Pass/Fail). To pass this assessment, the student must have a mark of 70 or higher out of 100.

1. Comprehensive Needs Assessment (35 marks)

• A clear reason for referral is provided
• Domains of Focus are described, based on Domains of Functioning
• Relevant assessments are selected (including a brief rationale) and clearly described
• Assessments results reported appropriately under the relevant Domain of Focus
• Risk Assessment and management of risk factors are clearly documented
• Relevant behavioural observations including current mental state are described
• The summary of strengths and limitations reflects the findings of the Comprehensive Needs Assessment

2. Opinions (25 marks)

• A brief formulation based on 5P’s
• Formal diagnosis is clearly described using standard diagnostic/classification systems
• Diagnosis is logically discussed, well-justified, and integrated with the formulation
• Discussion about whether symptoms meet all diagnostic criteria using examples from the client's presentation
• Differential diagnoses are clearly described and include reasons for inclusion or exclusion

3. Intervention Plan / Recommendations (20 marks)

• A brief outline of the intervention plan with treatment goals or recommendations clearly aligned with opinions - described in the previous section
• Adjustments are made for cultural appropriateness (i.e., interventions adapted to meet the client's customs, beliefs, and preferences)
• Provides specific intervention strategies that will be used for achieving these goals/recommendations and plans for managing risk factors if these are indicated
• The intervention plan is realistic given the experience of the psychologist, the complexity of the issues, and the number of sessions available for treatment

4. Evaluation and Reflection (15 marks)

• A clear description of how you would evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, using person-centered and evidence-based measures of change
• A brief reflection on intervention including lessons learned and how practice might be modified in light of the experience

5. Formatting and Referencing (5 marks)

• Report and reference list in correct APA format, including references to tests used, and a supervisor has signed the cover sheet to indicate that the report has been sufficiently deidentified to submit
• Appropriate and clear language has been used throughout without jargon or colloquialisms, and grammar and spelling are correct.
• Case Report is within 10% of the word limit - 3000 words.

Total Score /100. A detailed marking rubric will be available in Moodle.