The Wake Forest University Counseling Center Psychology Internship strongly values cultural and individual diversity and believes in creating an equitable, welcoming, appreciative, safe, and inclusive learning environment for its interns. Diversity among interns and supervisors enhances and enriches the program. Every effort is made by the internship supervisors to create a climate in which all staff and interns feel respected, comfortable, and in which success is possible and obtainable. The WFUCC Psychology Internship includes an overall goal of interns becoming competent in working with clients, colleagues, and community members from various backgrounds.  We foster this competence by providing training on identity and culture, encouraging interns to consult and collaborate with multidisciplinary staff members inside and outside of the UCC, and by challenging interns to reflect on their own personal and cultural experiences and how these affect their work with clients.

The UCC has infused our commitment to diversity into the Internship Program in the following ways:

  • Interns attend a biweekly Diversity Seminar during which exploration of own identities and areas of privilege, discussion of biases, discrimination of all forms, systems of oppression, and social justice in action, and participation in self-care surrounding interns’ own marginalized identities occurs.
  • Interns attend monthly Diversity Dialogues for the entire staff and trainees to encourage discussion and processing of biases, privilege, and beliefs that may impact our work with clients.
  • Interns develop and implement at least two outreach events addressing the unique needs of underrepresented populations on campus. Interns incorporate their specialty focus or an area of clinical interest into one of these outreach programs to foster understanding of the intersection of minority status and mental health (e.g., eating disorders in the Latino population, substance abuse among International students, etc.).
  • Interns are expected to develop awareness of their own biases and personal issues that may impact their work with clients through supervision, didactic trainings, and personal reflection.
  • Interns are encouraged to attend professional development workshops offered through the Professional Development Center (PDC), particularly the iLab 101 series, which is designed to help WFU community members increase their cultural awareness, intersectional awareness and understanding, and become more inclusive, as well as other diversity-related workshops (i.e., social justice institute, racial justice institute).
  • Interns attend professional development workshops hosted by the UCC for the purpose of helping our clinicians develop competence in working with various populations (i.e., International students, transgender individuals).