TRAINING / SUPERVISION
FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS
So, you’re in grad school and wondering where to do your traineeship at. It can be a daunting decision, for sure. Where will you get the training that helps you launch your career as an eventual licensed mental health professional? Child & Teen Counseling will not be the right place for every trainee, but perhaps it will be for you. These are the qualities in pre-licensed candidates who will have the opportunity to thrive at Child & Teen Counseling:
- Excited and passionate in connecting with kids and teens
- Fascinated by the ways in which one can support parents in better connecting with their kids and partners
- Dedicated professionals that will treat their experience at Child & Teen Counseling with respect towards themselves, their clients and their fellow staff members
- An ability to have fun and engage with others in a positive way
- A desire and appreciation for the discipline it will take to work toward a potential future private practice career path
- Work and learn amongst other pre-licensed and professional therapists at our location with our big sister affiliate, Teen Therapy Center
- PUNCTIUAL, RELIABLE and TRUSTWORTHY
All trainees will be provided with supervision and mentoring from staff at Teen Therapy Center to work towards not only learning how to effectively work therapeutically with kids, teens and families but also how to start mapping out one’s own private practice once licensed!
Hi, my name is Kent Toussaint. I am the Executive Director and Primary Supervisor at Child and
Teen Counseling. Let's start out by talking about a case of mine, long time ago. We're gonna
call this client Simon. That's not his real name. 12 years old, high functioning on the spectrum,
and a lot of anxiety. And we worked together for a long time through play therapy, through some
art therapy to explore his anxiety, his social interactions, family relations, things like
that and for a long time we played with cars and also army men and we had a great time and we were
processing feelings of anger and then one day Simon looks up to me and he says do you want to know
what's going on in my head and I'm like oh but I'm trying to keep cool and I said yeah tell me what's
going on Simon and he lines up all the cars in a really long line and put all the army men and tanks
surrounding them, putting all the weapons at the cars. And he makes these gates. And he goes,
each one of these cars represents
a fear or a thought that I can't let go of. And it's really scary because I need to get them through
the gate. But all the army men and the tanks are really angry and scared. And if I do anything wrong,
the army men and the tanks are going to shoot up the cars, and I can't let that happen. And I validated
his feelings. I talked to him more about what he was going through. And we went through this week
after week. We played this game over and over and over again to help process his feelings. And
later on, at one point, he looks up to me and says, Kent, I know you teach other therapists. If
you want to teach other therapists this game, you can do that. I said, you got it, Simon. So I'm
giving you an example of this is one way that we work with clients. And if this is something you
want to do, if you want to get in the nitty gritty and play therapy, art therapy, really support
kids and teens and families, maybe you should consider applying for your traineeship at Child
and Teen Counseling.
It's not for everyone. We're looking for go -getters and try -hards, looking for people who
really want to jump in and get their feet wet working with kids and teens. We are in a private practice
setting, which means that it's in the same office with my group practice, Teen Therapy Center.
We are trying to help teach you not only how to be clinician But also how to have a business mindset
as a private practitioner so you can eventually take that knowledge Into your associateship
and then licensure. It's really fun supportive environment We're looking for people who want
to be fun and supportive as well. We have really nice community here With this video. There should
be a flyer with instructions on how to apply to us Thanks again, and if you have any questions,
feel free to reach out to us Kent Tucson child, and teen counseling. Thanks, guys.
I knew Child and Teen Counseling was my first choice from the start. I came in and I was like, oh,
this feels really good here. I chose Child and Teen Counseling as my practicum site because
I see how successful people coming from the site turn out to be. It was the feeling I had when I
came here, the people I got to meet and the excitement I felt kind of at a really visceral level
about looking forward to being around these people day in and day out. and I really appreciated
even the interviewing environment. Everyone was sitting low on the ground together in this
well -lit room, and I felt safe there as an interviewee, which made me feel like, oh, this must
probably feel good on the side of the clients. For me, I think the most helpful thing was just
the community. I think the fact that all the associates and all the trainees were really supportive
when I first came in. other trainees, people that were ahead of me and below me, the associates,
Kent, Brian, Bennett, Robin, like it's a
whole family here. My favorite thing about this place is the tight -knit community. Everyone
is very supportive of each other, the staff, supervisors, everyone looks out for each other.
Everyone is there to, you know, help each other out and just be there for one another. And that's
something I was looking for from the beginning. It really helped me feel comfortable here and
it made me feel supported like not just by like oh I have a supervisor I can ask questions but I
have like a community of people who can help me. I really wanted somewhere where there was a strong
emphasis on supervision. So one thing that I've talked a lot with with the clinical supervisors
here about it's just about trusting my gut and my intuition. Doing that I think has really helped
me be in the room and be present in a way that's more authentic, that's easier for my clients to
connect. We just get a lot of freedom to kind of meet the client where they're at, whatever kind
of approach is that we have, and I just
really appreciate that. You know, my cohort, the people that I interviewed with and that I trained
with, we all went through the training process and learned to kind of find our voice. It's so
freeing to just have that liberty to do whatever I feel is right for the client and not necessarily
right for like the parent or right for my supervisor or things like that. It's like the client
first and foremost and I like that we get to have that Tommy. I think it really surprised me how
much I enjoy it. I mean I knew I would enjoy it. I'm surprised at how much I love the work. It feels
so fulfilling, and I really love getting to know the whole family, and something else that surprised
me is how I do get to know the whole family through working with one kid. I kind of have an idea when
I first started here that, oh yeah, like kids and teens, that'll be cool, but I don't know if it's
something I want to do the rest of my life. but I could definitely see myself doing this the rest
of my life. I think
I'm gonna miss the grind and the experience of like being in the office and like in CTC, in the
heart of CTC.
