Application Information

To apply to our site, please complete the AAPI Online. The details are available at the APPIC website at www.appic.org. This internship site agrees to abide by APPIC policy that no person at this training facility will solicit, accept, or use any ranking-related information from any intern applicant. Our deadline for internship application is Friday, November 18, 2022, 11:59PM Eastern Time.

Please include all essays, a cover letter specific to our site, CV, and graduate transcripts. Include 3 letters of recommendation - at least TWO letters must be from DIRECT CLINICAL SUPERVISORS who can speak to your clinical skills. This better helps us assess how well your skills and goals match with our training opportunities. Please do not include any assessment reports or other extra materials.

Our minimum intervention hours of 300 are flexible, given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the availability of practicum experiences for many trainees. We will consider other aspects of the application for goodness of fit in addition to hours. IF YOU DO NOT MEET MINIMUM INTERVENTION HOURS, please include in your cover letter a brief description of the circumstances that prevented you from completing your expected clinical training and a description of what you did instead. We welcome applications from all applicants who feel strongly about completing their training with us.

Invitation to Interview: Following a review of online application materials, applicants whose training, experience, and professional goals most closely parallel the training opportunities available at PAWS will be invited to participate in a Zoom interview. The Training Director will email applicants who are invited to interview and will connect them with the Program Coordinator who will assist applicants with scheduling on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Zoom Interviews: The Zoom interviews will take place Dec. 12-15, 2022. Typically two staff members are present (according to their schedules) for the 45-50 minute Zoom interviews and take turns asking questions. We meet as a team at the conclusion of the interviews to discuss the candidates and all staff contribute to the rankings. The Training Director submits and certifies the rank list before the ranking deadline and before the optional open house. See below for information about the open house and rationale for this process. 

Commitment to Equity: Our site is committed to implementing practices in the intern application and interviewing process that are as free from bias as possible. We recognize the socioeconomic impact of traveling for interviews, and thus do not conduct on-site interviews. While there is no way to avoid bias completely, we hope that by offering Zoom interviews and identifying as a staff the assumptions we may make based on candidate appearance, accent, visible surroundings and other factors, we are inviting candidates to participate in a process that is thoughtfully and equitably designed.

We offer an entirely optional open house for those candidates who feel strongly about in some way visiting a site before making their decision. The open house occurs after we have determined our rank order list, and before candidates are required to submit theirs. Even in making plans to attend the open house (while staff are still involved in ranking), applicants communicate exclusively with the Program Coordinator. The Training Director and staff are only informed of the total number of expected attendees, not the names of who will be attending. We welcome candidates to learn as much as they can about us to decide about best fit without concern that their visit (whether virtual or in-person) may influence our rankings of them. The open house is typically held in January with sufficient time for candidates to input their ranking decisions. Candidates are welcome to contact the Training Director, other staff members, and current/former interns at any time with questions. The Training Director is happy to forward email inquiries to the staff/trainees for their responses directly to you.

Background Check: If a candidate matches with our site, UW Tacoma will conduct a national criminal conviction background check (at no cost to the candidate) along with a self-disclosure questionnaire that will be submitted to UW Human Resources. The background check typically occurs within six months of the internship start date. While hiring is contingent upon successful completion of a background check, a criminal conviction is not an automatic bar to being hired at PAWS. Eligibility for hiring will be determined by the PAWS administration in consultation with UW Human Resources. Applicants who match to our program but do not successfully pass this background check will not be hired as doctoral psychology interns. See RCW 43.43.830 for relevant Washington state regulatory guidelines/definitions.

At PAWS, the waiting room and each office are equipped with air purifiers. Additional safety protocols such as mask wearing and physical distancing may change according to the course of the COVID-19 virus. Please access the PAWS website at https://www.tacoma.uw.edu/paws for information about current safety protocols. You are also welcome to ask the Training Director about current protocols at any time. Examples of safety measures may include masking in the PAWS waiting room, use of hand sanitizing stations, and conducting sessions via Zoom because mask wearing can be a barrier to communication during in-person sessions. For information about the UW Tacoma campus safety protocols, which may differ from PAWS protocols, please visit  https://www.tacoma.uw.edu/chancellor/covid-19. If clients or providers are sick with any illness, they must stay home, even if fully vaccinated. Enrollment in the  Husky Coronavirus Testing program is available for free to all members of the campus community. Please visit https://www.tacoma.uw.edu/chancellor/covid-19 for updated COVID-19 related information.