Graduate students in the Child Maltreatment Lab have opportunities to co-instruct and participate in courses, supervise and mentor undergraduate research assistants, and receive clinical training and supervision beginning in the first year.
Courses
Psych 430X: Psychology of Family Violence
This is a 3-credit undergraduate online course designed to provide an overview of the multiple forms of family violence through a psychological perspective. Topics covered include child maltreatment (i.e., sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect), intimate partner violence, dating violence, stalking, sexual assault, elder abuse, and current controversies in the area of family violence. Students are required to take four exams that cover key concepts and information from the readings and lectures. Students will also be required to complete two written assignments. Written assignments will include one reaction paper to a controversial topic in family violence (i.e., spanking, family preservation) and a paper examining therapeutic intervention for forms of family violence (i.e., neglect, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, intimate partner abuse). The purpose of this course is to encourage students to read, evaluate, and discuss issues related to all areas of family violence.
Psych 971 Psychological Literature I: Child Maltreatment & Family Violence
This 1-credit course is designed to further your knowledge of clinical and research issues in the area of child maltreatment and family violence. Each month, one article will be assigned by the instructor for the entire class to read and discuss during the next class. In addition, each student will be asked to complete three additional readings each month (of your choice) from a list of articles and textbooks selected by the instructor. Each month, every student is required to submit a short annotated bibliography describing these three articles. The purpose of the course is to read, evaluate, and discuss current and classic pieces of empirical literature to gain a comprehensive understanding of current critical topics/issues within the field of child maltreatment and family violence
Supervision and Mentoring
Clinical Training and Supervision
Graduate students in the Child Maltreatment Lab receive clinical training beginning in the first year. First and second year students are paired with a masters-level student to lead group therapy sessions through Project SAFE. Graduate students receive weekly supervision with the Clinical Director and Supervisor.
Mentoring
Since the research assistants in the Child Maltreatment Lab are crucial for the success of the lab, the graduate students reward such efforts through coaching, mentoring, and development of skills necessary to be successful in the research assistants' future academic endeavors, specifically graduate school. Graduate students in the Child Maltreatment Lab meet with undergraduate research assistants (RAs) on a regular basis to help with graduate school preparation. These mentoring and supervision opportunities can include a wide variety of guidance, such as:
- Research opportunities
- Graduate students often have opportunities to mentor and supervise research assistants as they provide assistance with Master's Theses, Dissertations and grant funded projects.
- Assistance with preparing posters at state, regional, and national conferences.
- A number of the research assistants in the Child Maltreatment Lab have presented posters with data from projects occurring in the lab at several different research conferences. Graduate students supervise the research assistants in conducting literature reviews, developing hypotheses, running data analyses, and poster formatting.
- Assistance with preparation for graduate school
- Curriculum Vitae (CV) Preparation
- Personal Statement Preparation
- Graduate Records Examination (GRE) Preparation
- Letters of Recommendation
- Completing Applications
- Graduate School Interviews
- Life as a First Year Graduate Student