Practicum and Internship Handbook: Field Placement Policies

Counselor trainees must submit an application and get approval from director of training and placements; email found on the website and the handbook. If the student wants to change a site or add a site in the middle of the semester, they have to notify the class instructor and the director of training and placements. If a student is staying in the same site through practicum to internship, one and two, there is a different application.
All the application is found in the clinical application page, East Texas A&M Counseling Department.
The student may have more than one site and not more than two. There are deadlines for Application submissions for practicum. The deadline will be posted on the department website (clinical application page).

• Counselor trainees must meet all course requirements, including documentation, as required by the Department and faculty instructors.
• Counselor trainees must enroll in practicum/internship until the required number of hours has been completed. Any re-enrollment requires a full semester commitment.
• Trainees must complete their practicum and internship experiences in a setting appropriate to their selected program specialization. The setting must provide a wide range of opportunities appropriate to the role of a licensed professional counselor.
• Trainees following the clinical mental health/community-counseling track MUST complete their practicum and internship experiences in a clinical setting (e.g., non-profit agency) under the supervision of a Texas LPC.

Note: The Department cannot guarantee that a trainee will be accepted by a particular field placement site. The Department cannot guarantee that a trainee will complete the required hours in a given semester.

Practicum is NOT offered in the summer. At the present time summer semester internship is available ONLY for Clinical Mental Health/Community-counseling track trainees.
Trainees are responsible for making the initial contact and arrangements with potential field site placements. All contact information regarding the field site must be provided to the Director of Training and Placement. All field placement sites MUST be approved by the Department (contact the Director of Training and Placement).

Trainees may use their regular employment as a field placement site only under the following conditions:

• Clinical Mental Health/Community-track trainees may use their work setting if: the work setting is an agency; they will perform duties different from those currently performed on the basis of a bachelor's degree; their field site supervisor is different from their current work supervisor. Trainees must obtain a letter from their field site supervisor verifying how these conditions will be met. The letter must be delivered to the Director of Training & Placement before the beginning of practicum and internship semesters.
• Internship counselor trainees may accumulate up to 30 hours of direct and indirect service between Internship I and Internship II semesters (see Between-Semester procedures elsewhere in this Handbook).

IMPORTANT NOTE: All counselor trainees MUST complete a Practicum or Internship Orientation prior to beginning classes. The orientation is provided online or face-to-face. Failure to complete the orientation may result in a trainee being dropped from the class.