The American Psychological Association (APA) recently granted $20,000 to CWRU’s University Counseling Services (UCS) to build an accredited internship program.

Doctoral internship programs are a required component for students looking to become licensed psychologists.

UCS has had two interns each year for the past four years. Interns train for a year through UCS, where they learn the latest mental health history and practice, especially as it applies to psychological services within a university setting.

“Interns at UCS play an important role in various aspects of our center’s functioning by providing individual, group and couples therapy, delivering evidence-based short-term and crisis interventions and facilitating outreach and psycho-educational programs for the campus community,” said Dr. Natalie Reiss, a psychologist at UCS.

Reiss said that the program is important because it “allows CWRU to maintain a vital role in training and educating the future health care professionals and ensuring the growth and development of psychology as a profession.”

UCS will use the grant to apply to become an APA accredited intern site. Accredited sites are charged with meeting current standards set by the APA and continuously seeking ways to enhance the quality of the education and training provided. The grant allows UCS to move forward in preparing an application, and to facilitate the necessary site visits.

According to Reiss, this grant allows CWRU to become one of approximately 100 university counseling centers across the country to provide this level and quality of training.

Correction: 9/29/14 at 7:55 pm. A previous version of this article said that the grant would allow UCS to increase the number of interns in their program. The correction reflects that the grant will instead be used for their application for accreditation. The Observer apologizes for the error.