Training and Education

Mount Sinai’s Child Behavioral Health and Science Center provides innovative training in psychiatry and psychology. We take a personalized approach to training. Our programs combine traditional classroom education with clinical experiences and research opportunities.

Our opportunities are listed below for both psychiatry and psychology.

Psychiatry

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship
The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship trains child and adolescent psychiatrists for leadership roles. We prepare you to excel in patient care, academics, and clinical research. Our graduates demonstrate the highest ethical standards, excellent clinical skills, and extensive knowledge. You learn about child and adolescent psychopathology, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, consultation, teaching, research, and administration. The program balances clinical experience with a formal didactic curriculum. It also uses individual and group supervision, conferences, and seminars to explore theoretical and practical principles.

Clinical rotations play a critical role in teaching the basics of assessment and treatment of children and adolescents. Fellows rotate throughout the Mount Sinai Health System to experience a full spectrum of clinical and clinical research programs. You work in emergency, inpatient, outpatient, and community- and school-based settings. We encourage fellows to engage in scientific research projects and scholarly activities. We offer mentorship and protected time. 

Medical Student Training Fellowship
Many medical students have limited exposure to child and adolescent psychiatry. The Beatrix Hamburg Medical Student Training, sponsored by the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation, addresses that need. The program provides significant clinical exposure, teaching, and mentorship for medical students at all levels. We pair each fellow with a faculty or senior child psychiatry fellows mentor, who meets with you one-on-one. We also hold monthly dinner meetings with all the fellows and mentors so you can process your clinical experiences, share ideas, and listen to invited guest speakers. The fellowship is funded by the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation (KTGF). Each year, students from medical schools with KTGF-funded mentorship programs convene for an annual conference to socialize, network, and present their clinical experiences and research in child and adolescent psychiatry. 

Triple Board Residency
Our Triple Board Residency offers board eligibility in pediatrics, general psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry. Our five-year, integrated curriculum consists of 24 months of pediatrics and 18 months each of general adult psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. Residents focus on pediatrics in the first and third years. Inpatient psychiatry, including six months of adult and six months of child and adolescent training, occupies the second year. The final two years of the program are in outpatient psychiatry. You work primarily with adults in the fourth year and children and adolescents in the fifth. As a Triple Board trainee, you attend Pediatric Continuity Clinic for the first four years of training (and have the option to continue into the fifth year). You see ongoing psychiatric outpatients, both adults and children, during years two through five. We strive to create an atmosphere that allows you to draw upon your clinical experiences in multiple settings. Our integrated, interdisciplinary experiences prepare you for a career in academic, community, private, and research-based institutions.

Psychology

Externship Programs
The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel offer the following clinical psychology externship programs:

The Seaver Autism Center Training Program at Mount Sinai enables trainees to participate in ongoing clinical and research activities. You may find yourself involved in administering research standard diagnostic instruments; conducting evaluations of cognitive, behavioral, and neuropsychological functioning; assisting with social skills therapy groups and sibling support groups; and helping with research projects.

The Division of ADHD and Learning Disorders Training Program at Mount Sinai lets you gain experience in both neuropsychological assessment and psychotherapy. The externship is approximately 2.5 days per week, and you work on a variety of clinical and research projects. The Division does most of its assessments with children and adolescents, though you will also have some exposure to adult assessments and treatments. You may also carry one or two psychotherapy cases and co-lead one or two groups.

The Eating and Weight Disorders Program at Mount Sinai offers a year-long training program to help you master assessment and intervention skills for patients with eating and weight disorders across the lifespan. The program involves taking courses on cognitive behavioral therapy, attending a research seminar, group and individual supervision, and participating in ongoing research. Advanced students may be able to develop their own research project.

The Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders Program at Mount Sinai enables you to provide evidence-based treatment for children and adults with OCD and related disorders, tics, and anxiety disorders. We use a variety of primary interventions including exposure and response prevention, cognitive behavioral therapy, habit reversal therapy, and assertive community treatment. You will carry a caseload of five to seven patients. You will be responsible for performing semi-structured initial evaluations using standardized measures, providing ongoing evidence-based individual therapy, and co-facilitating group therapy sessions.

Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West offer externships in child psychology to doctoral students in school, clinical, and counseling psychology (PhD and PsyD). We place externs in adolescent day treatment with the Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service (CARES), outpatient treatment, and parent-infant treatment with the Parent-Infant Center. As an extern, you will carry individual cases, co-lead groups, conduct intake evaluations, and attend clinic-wide administrative meetings.

The Child, Adolescent, and Family Multicultural Externship enables you to perform intake evaluations of children and families individual and group psychotherapy with children and adolescents, family therapy, psychological testing, and didactic experiences. The year-long externship offers training in a variety of approaches including psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and family perspectives in the context of cultural competence. You learn to work effectively with a multidisciplinary child/adolescent treatment team and to collaborate with other medical providers, schools, and community services.

Postdoctoral Fellowships
The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel offer the following postdoctoral fellowships in child psychology:

The Division of ADHD and Learning Disorders supports a full-time postdoctoral fellowship offering experience in both neuropsychological assessment and psychotherapy in children and adolescents. Fellows may also have the opportunity to work with adults. You will be responsible for several psychotherapy cases and for co-leading groups in ADHD skills training for both adults and children.

The Eating and Weight Disorders Program offers a two-year training program focused on assessment and intervention skills for patients with eating and weight disorders across the lifespan. The program involves coursework, a research seminar, and group/individual supervision. You are also required to develop a research project.

The Seaver Autism Center sponsors several postdoctoral fellowships each year. These research-based fellowships are awarded broadly. Recent examples include the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders; rodent model systems; neuroimaging; and the development and testing of behavioral and pharmacological interventions. You receive training at the Seaver Autism Center and participate in research studies. In turn, you bring your training into the community by providing direct care to children and adults and developing new clinical service programs.

Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West offer postdoctoral fellowship positions for candidates interested in doing clinical work with children, adolescents, and families, in an urban setting. You work with an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse population. You may provide individual, group, dyadic and family therapy; crisis services; diagnostic interviews; neuropsychological assessment; and school- and community- based interventions. You will have the opportunity to develop supervisory skills and will participate in advanced courses on supervision and psychotherapy. We offer five positions based in the Outpatient Department and one in the Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service.

Predoctoral Internship Programs
The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel offer the following range of predoctoral internship programs in child psychology.

The Mount Sinai Hospital sponsors an internship program that combines rotations on the inpatient child psychiatry unit and our outpatient Centers of Excellence. The outpatient centers include the Seaver Autism Center, the Eating and Weight Disorders Program, the Pediatric Neuropsychology and Learning Disorders Program, and the Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders Program. You will see a variety of didactics and supervision styles. The internship is not currently American Psychological Association (APA) approved.

Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West offer an APA-accredited predoctoral internship in psychology with a track focused on children and adolescents. The internship provides doctoral level psychology students with experiences in individual, group, and family therapy; crisis services; home and community-based services for chronically mentally ill patients; intensive case management; neuropsychological assessment; and alternative day programs for psychiatrically ill and/or substance-dependent high school students. You do major rotations in the Outpatient Department and at Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service (CARES). Minor rotations focus on learning neuropsychological testing and assessment skills, conducting intake evaluations to build diagnostic expertise, participating in clinical research projects, and conducting developmental screenings for babies and caregivers in the Parent-Infant Center. In addition, you participate in seminars focusing on child and adolescent psychotherapy and neuropsychological assessment. You may also take courses in child and adolescent psychopathology and psychopharmacology.

The Psychology Division of the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Beth Israel offers a year-long, full-time, predoctoral internship in clinical psychology with rotations in child psychology. This program is available to matriculated doctoral students in clinical and counseling psychology programs approved by the APA. The program provides an intensive, broad-based training in a variety of clinical settings, populations, and types of psychological interventions.

The Child and Adolescent Outpatient Rotation offers a four-month rotation on the Child and Adolescent Outpatient Service. You conduct intake evaluations and psychological assessments. You regularly collaborate with various members of the child’s school or other community agencies, such as child welfare. In addition, you become familiar with a number of therapeutic approaches including play therapy, parenting skills training, family therapy, and cognitive behavior therapy.

Trainings
The Center for Child Trauma and Resilience offers a variety of trainings and consultation services including didactic and experiential lectures and workshops, ongoing clinical supervision, and organizational consultation on trauma-informed practices. The Center specializes in integrating scientific and clinical information and adapting it to be consumer friendly, child- and family-oriented, and highly practical. We provide enough knowledge to understand a trauma-informed frame then prioritize practical and applied strategies that have an immediate impact on improving engagement with and healing for traumatized children, families, and staff who work with traumatized populations.