Salomons - CCCU

Salomons seeks to produce capable practitioners; that is, clinical psychologists who can adapt their skills and use them effectively in unique and complex situations. To achieve this, we believe that a core foundation of basic competencies needs to be established; these are then re-visited and expanded throughout the programme. Underpinning the development of all these competencies is a fundamental commitment to a bio-psycho-social understanding of human development and its challenges, across the lifespan. 

Programme Overview

The programme comprises four components: the academic programme; clinical experience through year-long and six-month multifaceted placements; the research programme; and the assessment process. The programme is organised in such a way as to enable the trainee to draw together their learning from these four activities so that each informs the other.

What Does a Typical Week Look Like?

Trainees typically spend the first half of the week (Monday-Wednesday) on placement, and the final part of the week at teaching or academic study. In the first and second year, trainees have approximately one study day per fortnight, and this increases to approximately a day per week in the third year.  
At the start of each placement, blocks of teaching are introduced which temporarily replace the routine weekly pattern of clinical, teaching and study days.  

How Placements are Structured

The programme is divided into three year-long stages. In the first year, trainees work with adults from a variety of backgrounds and are on placement in a range of adult primary, secondary, and tertiary services. During this year, the focus is on developing the foundation competencies required to work with individuals.  In the second year, trainees work for six months each with children and families, and with people with disabilities. During this year, the focus is the development of advanced competencies in working with families, carers and systems. In the final year, competencies will be consolidated and expanded through working with older people and within a specialist area. Choice of the specialist area is decided upon through attention to whether a trainee has any outstanding training needs, in combination with their areas of clinical interest. During this final year, the focus will be on developing more advanced clinical competencies and further development of competencies in working with teams and organisations and community psychology. 

Teaching Content

Teaching is undertaken by academic and clinical staff, both local and national, as well as by the Programme team, other professionals and service users and carers.  It is arranged so that its content relates closely to the clinical placements to facilitate the integration of the academic, clinical and research aspects of training.  Teaching sessions are based on an experiential learning model, drawing on trainees’ own experiences, and are usually interactive. Expert by experience involvement in teaching is common, and speakers are encouraged to consider minority perspectives. 

A variety of teaching methods are used including large and small group work, problem-based learning and team working, as well as didactic teaching. Web-based learning methods and online teaching are also increasingly being integrated within the programme, but the majority of teaching is likely to be in person, at Salomons. 

Thinking About Race groups run across the three years of training. These reflective spaces aim to provide a place for trainees to explore the impact of their racial experiences, emotionally, personally and professionally and to support an anti-racist approach. Trainees from Black, Asian and Other Ethnic backgrounds meet separately to those of White backgrounds in order to provide space to explore racist and anti-racist issues without black and brown colleagues constantly taking on the burden of clarifying, illuminating and guiding.

Teaching Options

An important feature of the Salomons programme is the opportunity to undertake specialist teaching options in the third year. These allow for the development of specialist skills; for example, in a chosen therapeutic approach (e.g. CAT, EMDR, systemic or psychoanalytic therapy) or in other areas (such as neuropsychology, leadership, working with organisations, or cross-cultural practice). The options available are reviewed yearly, building in considerable teaching flexibility and responsiveness to changing needs in the NHS and health and social care contexts. 

Teaching Structure

The teaching is organised around six central strands as shown.
 

Research, Service Evaluation and Knowledge Transfer

The Salomons Institute supports research projects in London, Kent and Sussex, as well as nationally and internationally, and seeks to attract trainees who are enthusiastic about enhancing their research and evaluation skills. The overarching aim of research teaching is to forge links between clinical work, research and evaluation to ensure that trainees are capable of developing, carrying out and assessing applied health care research in a variety of settings and across different populations. The research skills teaching covers small- and large-scale design, both quantitative and qualitative methods, statistics, service-user and carer involvement, ethics and dissemination strategies. We place a strong emphasis on encouraging publication/professional presentation of trainee work.
  
Trainees conduct a quality improvement project on placement during the first year of training and begin development of a major research project (MRP) in the first year, which continues into the second and third years. All trainees receive individual research supervision drawn from a large pool of experienced supervisors. In order for us to provide trainees with the best possible research training, we ask that trainees select an area of research where our staff and trust staff have particular strength and can therefore offer a high level of expertise. The staff team supports a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research methods. The course benefits from active involvement with our service user and carer group who can support the development of trainee research. 

After submission of the MRP in April of the third year, trainees are required to disseminate their research work in appropriate ways (e.g., through feedback to participants, service user and carer consultants in their research, professional conferences, Trust events and/or peer-reviewed publication). A significant proportion of trainee dissertations regularly achieve publication in peer-reviewed journals.  Excellent library support and computing facilities, as well as statistical and qualitative software, are available.

Assessment

All trainees register for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (D.Clin.Psychol.) with Canterbury Christ Church University.  The Doctoral Programme uses a continuous assessment system, which includes the formal assessment of clinical, research and academic competence.  The principal pieces of assessed work are:

• 5 Evaluations of Clinical Competence (formally completed by Clinical Supervisors on the placement). 
• 1 Assessment of Clinical Skills - comprising two components: a) Formulation and Evidence for Intervention Review and b) Basic Therapeutic and Professional Skills Assessment; the latter of which includes submission of a recording and annotated transcript of a therapeutic session. 
• 3 Professional Practice Reports demonstrating trainees’ clinical competencies across a range of client groups. 
• 1 Quality Improvement Project. 
• 1 Team Policy Report, reflective account, and group presentation.
• A Community Engagement Project.
• A Major Research Project (comprising a Literature Review, and a Research Report submitted in Journal format). 

The Programme does not use unseen examinations as a means of assessment. Guidance is provided on all assessment components through either individual or small group work, or online on the University’s virtual learning platform. Experts by Experience are involved in some of the assessment processes. In addition, throughout the programme trainees are expected to undertake learning support tasks, these are not formally assessed, but are tasks designed to complement and enhance the teaching component of the programme.