Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory

Elements of quality clinically focused postdoctoral training

Note: Nationwide Children's Hospital has one available Clinical Child Psychology fellowship position for the 2025-2026 training year (two additional positions have already been filled).

The goal of Nationwide Children's Hospital's (NCH) Clinical Child fellowship in psychology is to provide fellows with the best available generalist training, to develop and achieve mastery of the knowledge and skills needed to become successful, versatile, independently-licensed psychologists. The broad-based training foundation provided via the Clinical Child fellowship should prepare trainees either for future careers as generalist child and adolescent psychologists or for future specialization. We aim to provide this knowledge through didactics, supervision, and diverse clinical experiences in a community mental health center setting.

Clinical Child fellows participate in a wide range of clinical activities in our interdisciplinary outpatient Close to Home Centers, including frequent consultation with social workers, clinical counselors, psychiatrists, educators, and primary care pediatricians. Clinical Child fellows are located at various NCH outpatient clinics, including sites in Dublin, East Columbus, and NCH's Behavioral Health Pavilion.

Clinical Child fellows devote approximately 50 percent of their client contact hours to the role of primary clinician for long- and short-term individual therapy cases with children and adolescents, as well as cases requiring parent behavior management training. Fellow caseloads will include a range of internalizing and externalizing psychological disorders that occur in children and families across all age ranges. Depending on fellow interest and experience, fellows may have the opportunity to co-facilitate an evidence-based group treatment (The Incredible Years). In addition, fellows will have the opportunity to observe an additional evidence-based group treatment (based on Barkley's Defiant Children protocol).

Clinical Child fellows devote the remaining 50 percent of their client contact hours to psychological assessment. Typical referral questions include learning disorders, ADHD, and diagnostic clarification regarding other behavioral and emotional difficulties. Evaluations involve evidence-based assessment strategies and typically center on objective testing of cognitive, academic, and emotional/behavioral functioning.

The Clinical Child fellowship includes provision of approximately 16 hours of face-to-face client services per week. Clinical Child fellows work five days per week, including two evenings during the week. There is no "on-call" or weekend coverage. Hours worked per week generally range from 40 to 50.

Clinical Child fellows have been fully integrated into our telehealth services, which were rapidly developed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the amount of ongoing telehealth practice varies across different areas of NCH Behavioral Health, our current Clinical Child fellows are in their offices, full-time, at least four days per week, with the possibility of working from home on the fifth day of the week. Even when working from their NCH offices, Clinical Child fellows still frequently provide telehealth visits, though the option exists to provide in-person services when clinically indicated (e.g., for youth and families unable to effectively engage in telehealth services, or for administration of psychological testing).

Clinical Child fellows consistently identify the amount and quality of supervision received as highlights of their training experiences. Clinical Child fellows receive a minimum of 2 hours of regularly scheduled, face-to-face, individual supervision per week (split between two supervisors), focusing on treatment and assessment cases assigned to the fellow. Clinical Child fellows also participate in a weekly 2-hour clinical consultation and training group. This group supervision (referred to as "Vertical Team"), brings together psychology trainees at various stages of development (including Clinical Child fellows and pre-doctoral interns from our APA-accredited Clinical Child internship). Time in Vertical Team is typically split between didactics in relevant specialty areas and clinical case presentations designed to enhance the practical application of content discussed in didactics. Finally, each fellow is assigned a preceptor - independent of the fellow's direct supervisors - who is charged with providing an ongoing, supportive relationship; ensuring the fellow's experiences are consistent with the fellow's goals and objectives; and acting as a mentor regarding professional development issues.

In addition to didactics provided in the context of Vertical Team, Clinical Child fellows attend a fellowship seminar, held 1-2 times per month, with fellows from NCH's other psychology fellowship programs.

Applicants for the Clinical Child fellowship must be on track to complete all requirements of an APA-approved doctoral program in clinical, school, or counseling psychology and a one-year clinical APA-accredited internship, the bulk of which must be focused on children and adolescents. Completion of all requirements for the doctoral degree is expected by the beginning of the fellowship training year, though we understand that graduation ceremony dates may delay conferral of the doctoral degree until after the start of fellowship.

At NCH, Everyone Matters. We know it takes a diverse and collaborative culture and workforce to deliver on our promise to provide the very best, innovative care. As a result, diversity and inclusion is strategically linked to the hospital's overall success and requires true partnership and participation from all. Learn more about NCH's commitment to diversity and inclusion at https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/about-us/everyone-matters---diversity--inclusion

The Clinical Child fellowship program is administratively housed in NCH's Big Lots Behavioral Health Services, a multidisciplinary service line responsible for all mental/behavioral health services at NCH. Big Lots Behavioral Health services is the third largest department in NCH, providing over 229,000 outpatient visits to over 33,000 unique patients in 2018 alone. In 2020, NCH opened the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion, the largest behavioral health treatment and research center on a pediatric medical campus in the United States. NCH is also pleased to announce the launch of a new Institute for Mental and Behavioral Health Research, and its inaugural director, Eric Youngstrom, PhD. The Institute for Mental and Behavioral Health Research will be located in the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion, with a mission to conduct innovative translational, clinical, and epidemiological research focused on the causes, prevention, and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents. It is one more example of NCH's strategic goal of integrating clinical care and research. 

Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll for the last ten years on U.S. News and World Report's list of "Best Children's Hospitals", NCH is one of America's largest not-for-profit, freestanding pediatric health care systems, providing wellness, preventative, diagnostic, treatment, and rehabilitative care for infants, children, and adolescents, as well as adult patients with congenital disease.