Master of Psychology (Clinical - Child Specialisation)

Introduction

The clinical psychology (child specialisation) program is designed to prepare graduates for work in settings that provide clinical services for children, adolescents and their families. The training program is built on the core clinical stream and has been developed through partnerships with staff of the Psychology Department at Melbourne 's major paediatric service provider, the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH). The staff of the program are senior clinicians with a breadth and depth of clinical and research experience in the child and adolescent area that is unique in Australia . RCH staff contribute core teaching at advanced levels, and provide placement opportunities covering experience in a range of agencies and units within the hospital and in community mental health teams attached to RCH. There are exciting opportunities for research in the child and adolescent area in mental health and medical psychological domains through collaborative programs with staff at the Older Adolescent Service, Orygen,  the Royal Childrens's Hospital and the Early Psychosis Intervention Centre.

The program aims to train graduates with the knowledge and skills required for professional practice in agencies specialising in adjustment difficulties across the whole developmental period – infancy to young adulthood. Graduates will be able to provide competent assessment, therapy and management for a range of commonly presenting disorders and will understand the intrinsic and extrinsic influences on the development of adjustment difficulties. They will be expected to generate research and to be skilled in accessing and applying current clinical research findings to enhance and evaluate their practice.

Objectives

The objective of this specialisation is to provide graduates with specialist expertise in those areas of clinical psychology that pertain particularly to child and family adjustment and maladjustment. Graduates of the program should have a thorough knowledge of the major disorders of childhood and adolescence, methods of assessment of cognitive, emotional and family factors, and familiarity with a range of treatment approaches appropriate for the particular problems and the developmental stage of child clients. They should acquire experience in all facets of work in this specialty area, including inpatient, outpatient and community based practice. They should also be expected to be able to generate and apply research knowledge in ongoing enhancement and evaluation of their professional work.

Course Structure

Master of Psychology (Clinical - Child Specialisation)

The full time structure of the course comprises 200 points distributed as follows:

Year 1

Year 2

Coursework Subjects

Students may apply to the Convenor to undertake a subject from other streams in place of one of the above subjects.

Not every subject will be offered every year.