Fellowship Description: This Advanced Social Work Fellowship begins in September, 2026 and finishes in August, 2027. The training experience involves the opportunity to provide clinical services and to receive advanced training opportunities. This fellowship is full time, and is split evenly between inpatient and outpatient components. For the outpatient component, it gives trainees the opportunity to see clients in the general psychiatry outpatient child department, and to be a member of a multidisciplinary clinical team. For the inpatient component, the trainee will also have the opportunity to be a member of an interdisciplinary team on the adolescent inpatient unit, and to carry a small caseload of patients. Trainees are required to be on site for a total of 40 hours per week, including one evening. Postgraduate trainees receive a stipend (including health insurance) and four weeks of paid vacation.
Trainee Duties and Clinical Responsibilities: In the child ambulatory psychiatry department, social work trainees conduct individual psychosocial evaluations. They also provide individual, group, and family psychotherapy to patients seen through the child division. The social work fellow will carry an outpatient caseload that will comprise about 10 hours of billed clinical time, consisting of evaluations, time- limited cases, ongoing psychotherapy cases, group treatment, and family treatment. In the inpatient unit, the trainee will be a member of one of the interdisciplinary teams, and will carry a small caseload of patients, with whom they will work from admission through discharge. The trainee will work closely with the other team members, including the team psychiatrist, psychologist, social workers, case manager, and nursing staff. The fellow will offer group psychotherapy on the unit, under the supervision of a staff clinician, and will provide family and systems' meetings to coordinate the best aftercare plan possible for their patients.
Trainee Supervision: Each social work fellow receives a minimum of two hours of weekly individual clinical supervision, as well as supervision for their work using FIRST, an evidence based, transdiagnostic, time-limited, goal-oriented, treatment modality. All supervision is provided by independently licensed social workers, as well as senior staff in other disciplines. Additional specialized supervision is arranged as needed.
Orientation: At the start of the training year in September, incoming fellows will be expected to participate in hospital- wide orientation programs, as well as orientation specific to social work, the child OPD, and to inpatient psychiatry. Trainees will also learn to use EPIC, the electronic medical record. In addition, on the inpatient unit, fellows will receive site specific training including a review of required documentation, process of admission, ongoing treatment, and discharge planning. Shadowing opportunities with inpatient social workers will be provided.
OPD Team Meeting: This interdisciplinary weekly meeting is comprised of trainees and staff. During this meeting, new evaluations of patients are assigned, completed evaluations are presented, cases are reviewed, clinical consultations are extended to all team members, and basic clinical teaching is conducted. Team meeting is held Friday mornings from 8:30am to 12 noon, and is required of all staff and trainees.
Inpatient Team Meeting: This multidisciplinary team meeting occurs daily, and is attended by all team members. The SW fellow would attend this meeting four days per week, with the exception of Fridays. In addition to the daily clinical team meetings, the fellow would also attend the SW team meetings which occur the third Friday every month at 1pm, to discuss administrative updates, resources, process unit dynamics and review case challenges.
Treatment Modalities: The trainee would be given the opportunity to practice using a wide variety of evidence-based treatment options including: FIRST, CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, Solution Focused Treatment, Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Family Systems Treatment, Trauma Focused Treatment, and Group Psychotherapy.
Outpatient Psychiatry Department Seminars: A wide variety of seminars are offered and encouraged, including: Grand Rounds, an Acute Crime Seminar, a Child Psychotherapy Seminar, a Family Therapy Seminar, a Multicultural Seminar,and an OPD Case Conference.
Professional Development Seminar: SW fellows from our eight fellowship programs meet biweekly and have guest speakers present on multiple aspects of the social work profession.
Application Procedures
Fellowships are available to students who have completed an MSW from an accredited institution. Social work fellows are awarded an annual stipend of approximately $62,000 for a 12-month training year, with a 4-week paid vacation, holiday and sick time included. Fellows will be expected to have received their LCSW by the fall of 2026.
Trainees who are best matched to the fellowship program are mature and experienced students with varied clinical backgrounds and strong recommendations from both academic and clinical settings. Applicants for advanced social work training should submit a cover letter, C.V. and three letters of recommendation by March 27, 2026 to our program coordinator, John MacCumascaigh, at jmaccumascaigh@challiance.org.
Phillip Brown, LICSW
Director of Social Work Training
Chief of Psychiatry Social Work