Postdoctoral fellowship program in Pediatric and Outpatient Psychology

The fellow will participate in outpatient therapy and assessment for children of a wide range of psychosocial backgrounds ages 2-18. Patients are referred from primary care as well as a number of specialty clinics (e.g., Feeding, Diabetes, Concussion, Genetics, Cardiac, Neurodevelopmental Services). Diversity of patients is represented in race, ethnicity, gender, ability and socioeconomic status.

The fellow will use evidence based treatments for therapy, and will have the chance to collaborate with our psychiatry team to coordinate care. Common presenting concerns for therapy include depression, anxiety, ADHD, behavior concerns, adjustment and coping with medical concerns, OCD, and adjustment issues. The fellow will also conduct comprehensive psychological assessments to address referral questions related to problems with learning, attention, anxiety, emotion regulation and other neurocognitive concerns.

Therapy supervisor:

Kevin Coleman, PsyD, LP

Assessment supervisors:

Nikki Anderson, PhD, LP
Laurie Kincade, PhD, LP
Rebecca Vaurio, PhD, LP

Location:

St. Paul

The fellow in the therapy track will have the opportunity to become certified in PCIT by a Within Agency Trainer. PCIT is a specialized, evidence-based treatment program designed for caregivers and their young children (2 to 7 years of age) who are experiencing behavioral and/or emotional difficulties.

Supervisors:

Kadie DeBow, PhD, LP
Sarah Jerstad, PhD, LP

Location:

St. Paul

The Behavior Sleep Medicine fellow will provide outpatient behavioral health assessment and treatment services to infants, toddlers, school-age children, adolescents and their families presenting to Children’s Sleep Center with behavioral sleep concerns. The fellow will work as part of a multidisciplinary team that includes sleep physicians, a psychologist, nurse practitioners and sleep lab technicians.

Fellows will receive training in evidence-based interventions for the treatment of night waking, bedtime resistance, nighttime fears, nightmares, parasomnias, insomnia, delayed sleep-wake phase disorder and adherence to positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy. In addition to didactic trainings and weekly face-to-face supervision, the fellow will have the opportunity to shadow medical providers in the clinic and will participate in a monthly multi-disciplinary consultation group.

Supervisor:

Terese Amble, PsyD, LP

Location:

St. Paul

The post-doctoral psychology fellow will provide inpatient and outpatient psychology consultation, follow-up health and behavioral intervention, and mental health treatment for patients diagnosed with cancer and blood disorders, cancer survivors and their families. Clinical services are provided in person in the cancer and blood disorders clinic, inpatient hospital setting, and psychology clinic. The majority of services are provided in person, though telehealth is an option when clinically indicated. The fellow will follow, manage and provide psychology services for a caseload of patients and coordinate care for these patients throughout the post-doctoral fellowship year. Psychology services are provided for patients of all ages, including young adults. Psychology services and interventions range from support coping with diagnosis, treatment and procedural distress, pain management, and interventions targeting medication compliance to mental health services for behavior management, depression, anxiety or other needs. The fellow will have opportunities to collaborate with medical professionals involved in patient care and participate in weekly psychosocial team rounds, which includes social work, child life specialists, music therapy, ethics representative and spiritual care. There are opportunities to participate in Adolescent and Young Adult and survivorship programs as well.

Supervisor:

Nicole Quillen, PhD, LP

Location:

Minneapolis

The post-doctoral fellow, while on the Diabetes Psychology rotation, will have a year-long, 2-day a week outpatient rotation within the Endocrine Clinic at Children’s Minnesota. For one day, the fellow will be a part of the Diabetes Teen Clinic at Children’s Minnesota’s  Woodbury Specialty Clinic. The Diabetes Teen Clinic is a multidisciplinary team of endocrinologists, nurse practitioners, certified diabetes educators, dietitians, social workers and psychologists working together to care for teens diagnosed with diabetes.

On the other clinic day, the fellow will work with children and adolescents of all ages diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (primarily Type 1, but also Type 2 diabetes mellitus) at the Children’s Minnesota’s  St. Paul campus. The fellow will have the opportunity to work with patients and their family’s following a short-term intervention model to address a variety of difficulties including adjustment to new diagnosis, treatment adherence, as well as mood concerns and family conflict that interfere with diabetes management. The fellow will also work with diabetes patients during medical inpatient stays following periods of management difficulties (as able). The fellow will participate in weekly supervision for this rotation focusing on the role of pediatric psychology within diabetes, case reviews, multidisciplinary team collaboration and other topics as needed.

Supervisor:

Sara Gonzalez, PhD, LP

Location:

St. Paul

The Center for the Treatment of Eating Disorders (CTED) postdoctoral fellow will participate in training and delivery of state-of-the-art evidenced-based treatment for adults, children, adolescents and families in our outpatient clinic in St. Paul. The track will be one year long, two days per week. In addition, the fellow will work with our multidisciplinary team of specialists including psychiatrists, hospitalists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, dieticians, child life specialists and specialists in integrative care on our medical stabilization unit for children and adolescents in St. Paul. The fellow will participate in our weekly team case consultation meeting as well as individual supervision on family-based treatment (FBT), cognitive behavioral therapy- enhanced (CBT-E), and the Unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders in children and adolescents (UP-C/A).

Supervisor:

Helene Keery, PhD, LP

Location:

St. Paul

The post-doctoral fellow on the Feeding Clinic track will have a year-long, 2-day a week, outpatient rotation in the Feeding Clinic at Children’s Minnesota. For one clinic day, the fellow will be part of the multidisciplinary Feeding Clinic team evaluations on the Children’s Minnesota St. Paul campus. The team consists of a nurse practitioner, dietician, occupational therapist, speech-language pathologist and psychologist conducting assessment of child feeding difficulties from the lens of each discipline and collaboratively providing the family recommendations on interventions and referrals to ongoing treatment.

On the second clinic day, the fellow will work in outpatient therapy with children and adolescents of all ages diagnosed with pediatric feeding disorders at the Children’s Minnesota Minneapolis campus. The fellow will provide outpatient interventions tailored to each patient family and often includes intervening with behavior management strategies, improving environmental factors, and addressing mental health symptoms. The fellow will also participate in weekly individual supervision for this rotation focusing on the role of pediatric psychology within feeding, case reviews, multidisciplinary team collaboration, and other topics as needed.

Supervisor:

Kate Koehn, PhD, LP

Location:

Minneapolis

The integrated behavioral health (IBH) track focuses on providing behavioral health services within a primary care clinic. The IBH provider sees patients during clinic appointments (i.e. warm handoff) if available, sees patients for short-term therapy, and follow-ups with patients and their families afterwards to help coordinate behavioral health care services and supports. Follow-up services may include: calling to help schedule an IBH appointment, calling to help connect patient with outpatient therapy services, calling to answer questions related to behavioral health needs, or calling to coordinate care with community services (childcare, schools, and other medical providers).

The integrated behavioral health fellow will gain experience providing short-term therapy and real time consultations in a pediatric primary care clinic to address a variety of behavioral, emotional and medical concerns that have a mental health component (i.e., anxiety related to medical procedure). The fellow will be able to provide therapeutic services both in-person for clinic visits and virtual visits. Additional opportunities for group therapy and ADHD evaluation may be available to for fellow if interested.

Supervisor:

Ayala Gorodzinsky, PhD, LP
Anna Ryan, PhD, LP

Location:

Minneapolis

All post-doctoral fellows will be part of the psychology consultation-liaison service team throughout the entire year of fellowship at Children’s Minnesota. The service provides consultation to pediatric inpatients on the hospital medical units on both the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses. The consult service responds rapidly to the clinical needs of children and families who are hospitalized or in the ED.

Members of the hospital-based medical teams request consults for a wide variety of reasons, including:

• Assessment of mental health symptoms and treatment planning following suicide attempt;
• Therapeutic support while awaiting placement at higher level of psychiatric care;
• mood and behavior changes following medical procedures;
• emotional, behavioral, and social factors influencing current medical condition and/or treatment compliance/adherence;
• adjustment and coping to medical illness or injury, treatment demands, and/or hospitalization;
• coping after trauma (e.g., motor vehicle accidents);
• behavior management; and
• pain management.

Consults typically involve communication, coordination and collaboration with multiple members of the inpatient treatment teams, including but not limited to the hospital medical teams, nurses, social work, psychiatry, child life and others. Fellows will each be responsible for covering new consults for one assigned day per week and will continue to follow those patients throughout hospitalization. Consults will usually be conducted in person on the fellow’s primary campus, but at times telehealth consult across campus may be needed.

Fellows will also participate in one hour of weekly scheduled group supervision for this service focusing on the role of psychology within the hospital setting, case reviews, multidisciplinary team collaboration and other topics as needed. Additional individual supervision will be provided as needed.

Supervisor:

Kate Koehn, PhD, LP

Location:

Both campuses