Taking care

The end of the year is a stressful time. With deadlines and exam periods looming, feelings of isolation or anxiety can become overwhelming.

The UTS Psychology Clinic will be offering free assessment and cognitive and behavioural treatment to UTS staff and students until the end of the year to mark the opening of their new purpose-built clinic on campus.

Says Clinic Director Alice Shires, “We’re offering this opportunity in order to get the clinic up and running and to make sure we have enough work for the students.

“It's wonderful that the clinic is not only built to enable clients to feel comfortable and welcomed, but at the same time it’s also set up so that the students and their work can be monitored and supervised intensely,” explains Shires.

The UTS Psychology Clinic will give UTS staff, students and the wider community access to affordable mental health care on campus as well as ensuring that graduates of the Master of Clinical Psychology have the necessary experience to work across a diverse number of fields.

“The clinic is designed to meet the needs of the community and the needs of the students,” says Shires. “It’s a learning environment where we can assess students’ work. But in terms of priorities, the clients always come first, then the learning needs of the students come second.”

This commitment to clients is reflected in the free services offered until the end of the year, and the low cost of care beyond 2015.

“Even when it's fee-paying,” says Shires, “it’s a very low-cost service that is offering evidence-based treatments with well-trained clinicians and supervised very intensely so at times clients get two or three heads thinking about any one case.”

Masters candidates, or ‘provisional psychologists’, are in their fifth and sixth years of training when they take part in practical experience at the UTS Psychology Clinic. They are expected to complete a full semester of preparation before moving into the clinic, and then achieve a total of 1000 hours of clinical practice, at UTS and through external placements over two years, before graduating.

Shires, who is also responsible for skills-based learning, says, “Students get lots of input to their work, and they also provide a lot of output.

“We go through a whole semester of training workshops, lectures and problem-based learning, and we also use the clinic space to carry out simulation-based learning. Students have to have their work recorded and examined in order to achieve the prerequisites for going into the clinic and starting work.”

Further to this preparation, real sessions in the UTS Psychology Clinic can be filmed, with the client’s permission, to provide even more feedback to students and supervisors.

“There are perpetual feedback loops on whatever they are doing so students can always see where they can improve,” says Shires. “It's a very active learning process that makes sure students are career-ready, as well as providing a service to clients.”

Looking to the future, Shires says, “We will have a very busy clinic, with 15 therapists or clinical psychology trainees here at any one time.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to have a purpose-built facility where staff and students can provide a service to the community while closing the gap between theory and practice for the rapidly evolving field of clinical psychology.”

The UTS Psychology Clinic is located in building 7, level 2 and is offering free assessment and treatment to UTS staff and students until 18 December.

Contact the clinic on 9514 7339 or psychclinicadmin@uts.edu.au