Students complete a minimum of 800 hours of fieldwork and practicum. Students who anticipate applying for counselor licensure in certain states may complete 1000 hours or more, depending upon state requirements.
All students begin their first year in the program by completing 200-300 hours of work in Head Start facilities in a program called SIUE-Art Enrichment. In this program students have an opportunity to work directly with pre-school children in lower socio-economic, inner city areas. This initial experience is completed in concert with coursework in developmental theory, assessment, counseling theory and counseling techniques. In this setting students learn basic observation skills, develop goals and objectives for work with specific behaviors, establish therapeutic relationships with young children, set boundaries, and apply techniques of art, play, and counseling. Students will be guided in learning how to use supervision for support and will learn the complexities of completion of paperwork for federally funded grants. Weekly supervision is a part of this program. One hundred of these hours can count toward Art Therapy Fieldwork, and the remainder of the hours can be counted toward a counseling practicum.
Because working with 3-5 year olds is vastly different from working with adolescents, the second phase of the experiential component of this program is the Detention Home Fieldwork experience. In this setting, students will focus on forming a therapeutic alliance with one incarcerated adolescent. Supervision will focus on writing goals and objectives, learning to write progress notes, and planning sessions to meet treatment objectives. Students will also further their skills is doing assessments and writing treatment reports.
During the second year of the program, practicum experiences are individualized for each student, depending upon the student’s research and clinical interests. All students will complete one intensive practicum with children or adolescents, and one with adults. Students can choose from over 75 practicum sites in the St. Louis metropolitan area and Illinois. This is a more intensive experience requiring 15-25 hours per week on site. Practicum supervision groups meet weekly to address problems and issues that arise on site, and students are also supervised on-site either by an art therapist or by a Master’s level clinician in a related field.
Practicum sites vary with each semester, and new agreements with agencies can be initiated at any time. Practicum affiliations currently held with SIUE include: