Child, Adolescent, and Pediatric Psychology Track

Supervisors

Kyle Bersted, PhD; Janet Yarboi, PhD; Kristina Butler, PhD; Bridget Makol, PhD, Kaleigh Wilkins, PhD

Specific objectives

Training is dedicated to state-of-the-art delivery of psychological services for infants, children, adolescents, young adults, parents, and families. The goal is to produce competent clinical child/pediatric psychologists for applied and academic careers in pediatric care. The training philosophy is grounded in two guiding principles: one, that health care is best provided through multidisciplinary collaboration between medical and behavioral sciences; and two, that mental health is best understood from a developmental perspective. Residents gain competency in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, new and innovative techniques, brief and long-term treatments, inpatient consultations, and specialized services.

Structure

Training is provided through the departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Residents participate in most clinical services throughout the year, allowing for greater depth of learning and longer-term patient follow-up. These clinical services include:

  • Comprehensive psychological evaluation
  • Neonatal behavioral assessment (NICU) and high-risk infant follow-up
  • Multidisciplinary Young Child Clinic (YCC)
  • Outpatient therapy clinics (Medical Coping, PCIT)
  • Integrated primary care
  • Inpatient consultation-liaison (C/L)
  • Inpatient/outpatient pediatric psychosocial oncology

Clinical service descriptions

Comprehensive psychological evaluation: This service provides residents with an opportunity to conduct psychological evaluations of youth with attention deficit disorders, autism spectrum disorder, developmental delays, learning disabilities, internalizing/externalizing disorders, and a variety of medical conditions. These evaluations provide families/caregivers and referring medical providers with diagnostic clarity and tailored recommendations. Training includes the use of measures to assess cognitive, language, adaptive, academic, attention/executive functioning, memory, social, and behavioral/emotional functioning. Additional areas of training include conducting diagnostic interviews and feedback sessions, as well as report writing.
Supervisors: Kyle Bersted, PhD; Bridget Makol, PhD

Neonatal behavioral assessment (NICU) and high-risk infant follow-up: This is an experience in developmental screening and evaluation of infants and young children. Fundamentals of early development and assessment of normal, abnormal, and high-risk populations are taught through use of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development.
Supervisor: Kristina Butler, PhD, Kaleigh Wilkins, PhD

Multidisciplinary Young Child Clinic (YCC)/targeted psychological evaluation clinic: An experience in Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics (DBP) that includes collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of developmental behavioral pediatricians, neurologists, audiologists, speech language pathologists, and genetic counselors. Residents can collaborate on evaluations provided through two referral types: 1) Brief autism evaluations for children aged 1 to 5. Evaluations utilize the ADOS-2 and, as needed, measures of early cognition, language, and motor functioning; 2) Brief psychological evaluations aimed at targeting a specific rule out diagnosis for children aged 5 to 12. Common rule-outs include autism, intellectual disability, learning disabilities, and language disorders. Primary areas of training include test administration, brief report writing, and communication with the multidisciplinary team. Residents also can observe multidisciplinary team visits.
Supervisor: Bridget Makol, PhD

Medical Coping Clinic (outpatient therapy): This clinic focuses on the psychological evaluation and treatment of children, adolescents, and young adults presenting with comorbid medical conditions. Patients in this clinic are typically referred from within the medical center for support in managing the changes in emotion and behavior often accompanying acute and chronic illness. Residents will gain experience in tailoring evidence-based approaches to help patients and their families: adjust to a new or worsening medical condition; increase self-management and treatment adherence; prepare for a medical treatment or procedure; cope with psychosocial, illness-related stress; manage depression, anxiety, medical trauma, and/or other psychopathology interfering with medical care; manage grief related to the death of a sibling or caregiver, among other presenting problems. Individual supervision is provided on a weekly basis.
Supervisor: Janet Yarboi, PhD

PCIT Clinic (outpatient therapy): This clinic focuses on intervention with toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children with disruptive behaviors. Therapy focuses on providing caregivers with behavioral strategies to strengthen the parent-child relationship and manage their child’s behaviors and big emotions. Both short-term and longer-term empirically based approaches are taught. Residents can work towards certification in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and receive live supervision while providing services. Advanced training opportunities in PCIT adaptations are available, including PCIT for Toddlers and PCIT Adapted for Older Children.
Supervisor: Kristina Butler, PhD; Kaleigh Wilkins, PhD

Integrated primary care: This experience allows residents to provide short-term/targeted behavioral health treatment to children, adolescents, and their families within a primary care setting. Services are provided through a short-term therapy model (6-8 sessions) after families are referred by their pediatricians. Typical areas of clinical focus include behavioral problems, parent management training, anxiety, depression, academic issues, and sleep concerns.
Supervisor: Kyle Bersted, PhD

Inpatient consultation-liaison (C/L): Fundamentals of inpatient consultation-liaison on medical units are taught. Residents interact closely with multidisciplinary teams of health care providers. Consultations may include diagnostic evaluations, developmental and psychological assessments, behavior management, parent and family counseling, individual therapy, staff guidance, in-service presentations, and attendance of rounds and family/team meetings. The focus here is brief assessment and short-term intervention where the primary goal is providing other health care providers with clinical information and recommendations while supporting the psychosocial needs of medically hospitalized youth (general pediatrics; pediatric intensive care) and their caregivers (neonatal intensive care). Residents will gain experience in chart review and documentation for medically complex patients.
Supervisors: Janet Yarboi, PhD, Kaleigh Wilkins, PhD

Pediatric psychosocial oncology: An experience in collaborative work between psychologists and other health care professionals (e.g., oncologists, medical residents, nurses, child life specialists) is provided in a setting of chronic and life-threatening illness. Training focuses on treatment of the most common clinical symptoms found in child, adolescent, and young adult cancer patients. These include depression, anxiety, pain, nausea, adherence problems, and loss of quality of life. Training includes supportive work in death and dying.
Supervisor: Janet Yarboi, PhD
 

Didactics and supervision

Attendance at Pediatric and Psychiatry/Behavioral Sciences grand rounds is encouraged. Residents also attend seminars and teaching conferences designed for the entire residency class (nine residents across three training tracks). Supervision and training include direct observation and modeling, co-participation, didactic teaching, and a combination of individual and group supervision. Residents receive a minimum of four hours of individual and group supervision per week.

 

Research

Residents receive three hours of protected research time on Fridays from 2:00pm – 5:00pm. This time is reserved for: 1) dissertation and/or 2) research projects at Rush (there are several ongoing projects in the departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry/Behavioral Sciences residents may choose to pursue). Research opportunities at Rush are only available to residents following a successful defense of their dissertation. If residents have completed their dissertations and are not engaging in any research projects at Rush, they are expected to be available for clinical responsibilities (e.g., consults, feedback appointments, documentation, report writing, etc.) during this time. For residents still working towards completion of their dissertation, protected research time may also be used to meet with dissertation research staff, research advisors, etc. Such meetings may not be scheduled during regular work hours without approval from Dr. Bersted and/or Dr. Yarboi.

 

Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion

We firmly believe that promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for everyone is foundational to the Rush mission to improve the health of the individuals and diverse communities we serve through the integration of outstanding patient care, education, research, and community partnerships. We see diversity as a strength and essential in helping all of our trainees and faculty, regardless of background, to work more effectively and compassionately with their colleagues and patients. We recognize our privilege of caring for historically marginalized and underserved populations who have been the victims of systemic oppression in medicine for far too long. As individual members of a larger institution, we also understand that we must work to challenge our own biases. In an effort to increase awareness and advocacy, and to promote the delivery of equitable care, we encourage trainees to participate in DEI-related initiatives, including grand rounds, book clubs, community engagement and research opportunities, and/or formal DEI committees within our department and institution. Dr. Bersted and Dr. Yarboi serve as co-chairs of the DEI Committee in the Department of Pediatrics and are actively involved in several department-wide DEI initiatives.