Brief Internship Overview

The BetterWorld Internship is a 9-month, 700+ hour child & adolescent art therapy internship with a time commitment from September through May. Interns see clients on Sundays and two weekdays each week to earn the required hours by the end of the 9-month experience. Features of the internship:

• 700+ hours of clinical experience in an outpatient private practice setting during the school year, Child and Family Art Therapy Center, P.C.

• A clinical training component offering 24+ hours of direct instruction in advanced practice child-adolescent art therapy, visual cognitive-behavioral coping skills lessons, integrating parent support & training into child art therapy.

• Individual art therapy experience and social skills group therapy experience in an outpatient private practice serving children 4-18.

• Weekly group supervision available with experienced private practice art therapists (supervised by an ATR-BC, LPC art therapist)

• Weekly individual supervision with an ATR-BC art therapist

• Collaboration with intern’s graduate program including intern evaluations

• Interns may provide services at three regional locations: Haverford PA, Merion PA, and Center City Philadelphia

Learning Objectives

Interns will explore and learn an integrative and holistic approach to outpatient child art therapy in a family therapy context for the general-psychiatric population, including:

• case management

• collaboration with educators and other professionals in the extended community treatment team

• performing initial Bio-Psycho-Social intake interviews and clinical communication with parents

• family art therapy assessment

• parent-coaching

• child-centered art therapy

• therapeutic storytelling techniques

• “Art Therapy in Reverse” (Visually Communicated Cognitive-Behavioral Coping Skills Lessons)

• Ethical considerations in outpatient therapy settings

• Issues in diversity, inclusion, anti-racist, and social justice

• Specialized treatment strategies and techniques for children with neuro-developmental disorders

• Facilitating social skills therapy groups (if available)

• The structure and implementation of a private pay private therapy practice

The Internship

The internship offers outpatient therapy work at the Child and Family Art Therapy Center's ACCESSIBLE THERAPY DIVISION from September through May, during which the intern predominantly works independently. Interns learn and practice an innovative outpatient art therapy model with adolescents and children, “Individual Child Art Therapy in a Family Systems Context”. There may be an opportunity to learn our proprietary social skills therapy program, The Art of Friendship Social Skills Groups, depending on available contracts with area schools.

25+ hours of live clinical training seminars prepare interns to deliver CFATC's original individual child art therapy approach in an outpatient setting. “Individual Child Art-Play Therapy in a Family Systems Context” (ATFS) integrates the child’s home and school systems into the treatment process. Pre-internship training interweaves the following theories in psychotherapy:

• Individual child-centered engagement with clients

• Dynamic, developmental, and trauma-informed case conceptualization

• Family systems theory and parent training approaches

• An eclectic range of additional theories in psychotherapy (including, but not limited to: CBT, Person-Centered, Narrative, Solution Focused, Eriksonian Hypnosis principles, ACT, IFS, psychoeducation, etc.)

Pre-internship training teaches interns to implement the unique ATFS three-session assessment procedure:

• Verbal Bio-Psycho-Social intake interview with parents

• Family art therapy assessment

• Individual child art therapy assessment

The ATFS approach creates a holistic holding environment in-session that generalizes to home. Interns learn how to engage resistant caregivers and to deliver digestible, meaningful clinical feedback, with recommendations to increase safety, structure and support at home and school.

Interns participate weekly in at least one hour of individual art therapy supervision provided by an ATR-BC, LPC art therapist. They also are invited to participate in weekly professional group supervision with the clinical associates at the Child and Family Art Therapy Center.

Populations Served and Fee Structure

The Child-Adolescent Internship serves underserved populations who cannot afford expensive private-pay fee-for-service art therapy or may not have health insurance. This program retains a fee-for-service structure, but offers sliding reduced rate therapy fees. Each family will pay what they can afford. According to CFATC philosophy, there must be a token exchange of value for art therapy services. This reciprocal exchange is essential in order for clients to value the therapist’s time and to invest in the therapy process. By offering a reduced cost option for therapy, CFATC expects families from underserved and often marginalized groups to benefit from these innovative, child-friendly approaches to therapy.

CFATC provides individual therapy for a wide range of challenges of childhood and adolescence, including: trauma, anxiety, anger, depression, oppositional/defiant behavior, parent-child conflict, coping with separation/divorce and other academic and social challenges. CFATC also has a specialty in treating children with neuro-developmental differences, such as Autism, ADHD, and learning disorders.

Partnership with Graduate Programs

The Child-Adolescent Internship at CFATC communicates and collaborates with the intern’s graduate program as needed, including timely student evaluation and openness to site visits.

Internship Applicant Qualifications

Applicants must attend approved/accredited art therapy graduate programs only. This is not an internship for other professions or treatment modalities. Applicants must be academically high achieving, a positive contributor to their graduate program community, possess excellent written and oral communication skills, exude self-awareness, emotional self-regulation and maturity, and demonstrate a passion for working with children and adolescents. Applicants must have completed 1st year coursework and all 1st year clinical placements (or their equivalents as approved by internship director in communication with the graduate program) by the start of the BetterWorld Internship. Interns must be available to see clients on Sundays in addition to weekday hours. All staff are required to obtain all federal and state clearances.

CFATC is an equal opportunity employer. All policies and practices will be administered without regard to race, color, creed, age, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, marital status or disability.

Application Process

Prospective interns will complete an application and interview process. There is no fee to apply. You must submit:

• Cover letter expressing your motivation for applying for this internship, your professional passions and goals

• Your current CV/resume

• One (1) professional writing sample (graduate level essay/case paper, redacted assessment report)

• One (1) recommendation letter from an art therapy graduate program instructor/supervisor who knows your work well

Prospective interns must complete an in-person interview; video conferencing is discouraged and only used as a last resort. Please send only complete applications with all application materials. Interviews will occur and applications will be considered only when all application materials have been received.

Please send application materials to BetterWorld Internship coordinator & supervisor, Marlie Krickus, in one of two ways:

1. By email: Mike@childandfamilyarttherapycenter.com, with the subject “Internship Application”

2. By postal mail:

CFATC Internship Application
c/o Mike Fogel
600 Haverford Rd. Ste. G-101
Haverford, PA 19041

Why does CFATC's Affordable Therapy Division and the Child-Adolescent Internship exist?

On a planet with far too much pain, suffering, injustice, and struggle, the mission of the Child and Family Art Therapy Center is to create a Better World, a world with love, compassion, hope, safety, justice, peace, and respect for all. This internship program magnifies and actualizes that mission by:

• Filling gaps in treatment and providing access for underserved and marginalized populations to affordable and excellent mental health care

• Improving clinical education for art therapy graduate students

• Providing additional high-quality second year placements for graduate art therapy programs

• Preparing art therapy interns to provide outpatient individual child art therapy integrating parents and the family and school systems

• Inspiring new art therapists to innovate, become entrepreneurs, and to eventually run a private practice of their creation

• Increasing the number of art therapists equipped to provide effective therapy for the burgeoning population of children with high functioning Autism and related neuro-developmental disorders