Program Overview & Vision

The Texas Telehealth Internship Consortium is a 2000-hour doctoral internship in health service psychology that is a collaboration between the Texas A&M Health Telehealth Institute and the Baylor Scott & White Warriors Research Institute. This internship seeks interns who have completed formal academic coursework at a degree-granting program in professional psychology (clinical, counseling, or school).

While graduate students who complete the internship will be equipped to work in many contexts, this training experience will emphasize the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to work in rural and underserved areas where there is a high need for health service psychologists. Interns will also be uniquely equipped to provide services to first responders. Additionally, this training program is focused on equipping graduate students to work across the lifespan, on maximizing the strengths of telehealth and technology to increase access to care, and on providing evidence-based treatments. Trainees will have the opportunity to provide treatment to individuals presenting with a wide variety of presenting concerns including trauma, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and relationship concerns.

The Texas A&M Health Telehealth Institute will serve as the anchor site for the Texas Telehealth Internship Consortium. Interns are expected to reside in Bryan/College Station, Texas, during their time as interns and be physically present in the Telehealth Institute during regular office hours. Interns will travel to Warriors Research Institute in Waco, Texas, one-two days per month.

The Texas A&M Health Telehealth Institute and the Baylor Scott & White Warriors Research Institute are forerunners in providing innovative, low-cost ways for Texans to access mental health care with telehealth initiatives that predate the COVID-19 pandemic. While the two organizations have treated distinct client populations, they share similar values and training objectives. Given this shared, longstanding experience, a partnership was established to increase the breadth and scope of professional development opportunities and to increase community impact. Additionally, the staff at the Telehealth Institute and Warriors Research Institute have diverse areas of expertise in first-line treatments, and a partnership allows trainees to gain access to clinical supervisors with a wider range of experiences and expertise.

The Texas Telehealth Internship Consortium will focus on training future leaders in telehealth service delivery, policy-relevant research and evaluation, and interdisciplinary training. The Texas Telehealth Internship Consortium is working to address disparities in access to high-quality behavioral health care to diverse communities through collaborative partnerships and the application of scientific knowledge. We are committed to fostering innovative, critical thinking within our faculty, staff, and trainees and building cultural awareness and competency within relationships to meet evolving mental health needs. 

Training activities will be sequential, cumulative, and graded in complexity with the goal of equipping interns with entry-level competency in the following specific areas:  

• Efficacy in telehealth delivery
• Scholarly approach to clinical work
• Evidence-based interventions
• Multicultural competence
• Legal and ethical standards
• Organizational behavior
• Supervisory skills
• Working with rural, underserved populations
• Working with trauma-exposed populations
• Multidisciplinary coordination of care