Work placements

You must have passed at least 150 compulsory credits to undertake the work placement, including all the credits of the 1st and 2nd year of the Degree, and take the Ethics and Code of Ethics Course.

There will be 270 hours of classroom practice. If for any reason it was not possible to do all of this in person, you must do a minimum of 216 hours in person and complement the remaining 54 hours with non-classroom tasks (reading books, preparing sessions...)

The Master's Degree in Psychology includes compulsory work placements, with an extension of 18 credits, which will be carried out in the subject corresponding to the speciality being studied.

In the Psychology speciality of social and community intervention, it will be preferable to have pre-professional work placements in Psychology centres and services in this field, tutored by practising professionals.

In the Experimental Psychology speciality, introductory research work placements will be carried out, mainly in university research groups.

The external work placements of the Master's Degree in General Health Psychology (Practicum) are an essential part of its training programme. Their undertaking seeks the link between theory and supervised clinical practice, depending on the context, the role of the professional and the type of competence to be acquired. They aim at the progressive assumption of responsibilities by the student until an optimal level of autonomy is reached. They will be carried out in clinical settings under the supervision of a qualified (clinical psychologist) or accredited psychologist.

In order to carry out the Work Placement, students must have passed 80% of the credits of the first semester.

The assignment of places for the first training period (May-June) will be made in the month of March/April and the assignment for the second period (September-December) will be made in the month of July.

The order, in which places are assigned, for both periods of the Practicum, will be based on the arithmetic average of the mark for admission to the master's degree and the average of the subjects in the first semester of the master's degree.

The number of arrangements and centres to carry out the external work placements of the Master’s Degree will continue to increase as new agreements are signed. The places offered by the Centres may vary according to availability.

Work placement periods

The Master's Degree work placements are undertaken in 2 periods. Practicum I (12 credits), in the months of May-June of the first academic year (8 weeks). Its activity is distributed as follows: 280 hours of clinical practice and 20 hours for the preparation of reports.

Practicum II, whose schedule can be set between the months of September and December, depending on the availability of professional tutors, consists of 18 credits. Duration of 12 weeks, distributed in 420 hours of clinical practice and 30 hours for the preparation of reports.

Duties of the supervising psychologist

The supervising psychologist is responsible for tutoring the work placement activities aimed at acquiring the competences and for the periodic evaluation of the said competences throughout the training process, involving the student in their strengths, weaknesses and needs, with a view to correcting the deficiencies detected in order to amend them.

Work of the students in work placements

During the work placement period, the student progressively goes through two phases: participatory observation and direct action.  By way of guidance, the first of these could last around three weeks, although this assignment may vary depending on the criteria of the tutor.

During the process of learning the skills and competencies, the student should review their progress. To this end, they should record a detailed assessment of how their work is progressing every week, noting the level of difficulty encountered and the particular needs and problems that arose in the performance of each activity, to comment on and discuss them later with the supervisor and try to remove the obstacles encountered. This task also helps the student to learn how to monitor and evaluate their work.

They must also record, by means of the relevant report, any activity they attended, at the discretion of the tutor (clinical sessions, conferences, workshops, etc.) and attach it to the descriptive report at the end of each Work Placement period.

Supervised work placement

Supervised work placement requires commitment from the tutor. This process includes staggered activities of responsibility:

• Participatory observation: situations in which the student observes the supervisor performing different tasks, in order to become familiar with the different techniques and facets of the clinical activity, using reflection on that observed as part of the learning and development process
• Direct action: tasks performed directly by the student under the supervision of the supervisor. The assignment of direct action tasks will be gradual, according to the level of fluency that the student acquires, from specific and defined actions to complete interventions. As a support for the management of the tasks and activities, the supervisor may ask the student to review additional theoretical material, if they consider it convenient. After each intervention, the student will prepare a Report on the activity carried out (in which they will relate the objective/s of the task, the description of the task, instruments, methodology, etc.) which they will comment on in the supervision session. As a guideline, two Activity Reports in Practicum I and three in Practicum II.

The development of each activity, whether observation or action, forms the basis for subsequent detailed discussion and critical reflection as part of the learning process. It will require weekly dedication, so that supervisor and student work together, discuss the work/activity carried out by the student, solve difficulties and doubts, and the tutor will help the student to process the work at a cognitive and emotional level and reaffirm it in the development of their professional confidence.

At both levels of training, the supervisor must continuously evaluate the student's performance, during and at the end of the training period, using categories of qualification for which guidance will be provided in the Competence Evaluation Sheet according to the heading system.

Examples of supervised activities

• Case approach (participation in the preparation of psychological reports, evaluation and functional analysis)
• Participation in the development of protocols and programmes for evaluation, intervention and monitoring.
• Management in crisis situations.
• Psychological intervention for people who suffer some conflict, problem, break-up, loss, etc.
• Psychological intervention: techniques of guidance, advice and psychological personal, family support and for support for couples.
• Application of specific techniques (stress control and management, #social skills training, cognitive rehabilitation, etc.)
• Evaluation and design of psychosocial rehabilitation programmes.
• Assessment and intervention for improvement of adherence to medical treatment
• Design of prevention and health promotion programmes and activities (smoking, obesity, physical activity, etc.).
• Evaluation and design of psychological intervention programmes in chronic physical illness (cardiovascular disorders, cancer, diabetes, digestive diseases, etc.).
• Pain management
• Palliative care intervention programmes.
• Attendance at clinical sessions.
• Search for bibliographic material related to a case.

The work placements of the Inter-university Master's Degree in Psycho-gerontology are carried out in the first year in the second semester and have a load of 13 ECTS.

Objectives of the work placements

Application of the knowledge acquired in the obligatory and optional subjects as a professional psychologist in the different centres where the work placements are carried out.

Practical experience in psychological assessment and intervention with healthy and sick older people.

Practical experience in the multidisciplinary work in the elderly care centres.

Practical experience in intervention with families and carers in elderly care facilities

Demonstrate that skills, attitudes and abilities were acquired to efficiently and professionally deal with the tasks of psychological assessment and intervention with healthy and sick elderly people in family and institutional contexts, as well as to work in multidisciplinary teams in the various care arrangements for the elderly.

Monitoring

The academic teachers/tutors will be teachers of the programme who will be assigned to each student by the Alcancé#mico Committee.

The External Work Placements must be carried out in any of the gerontological centres or arrangements with which there is a collaboration agreement. There is the possibility of establishing new agreements with centres of particular interest to students.

The work placements will be supervised by USC professors who will act as Alcancemic tutors and by an external tutor belonging to the corresponding centre or arrangement. The title of Psychologist is required in order to be an external tutor.

The activities carried out during the External Work Placements will be reflected in a Report.

• Coordinator of the Degree’s work placement. Olalla Cutrín Mosteiro. Chairman of the committee by delegation of the dean. Vice Dean.
• Secretary of the work placement committee. Mª Luísa Bercero Redondo. Unit Manager for the Management of the Centre
• Work placement/external work placement managers of official degrees assigned to the faculty:
  • Sabela Carme Mallo López. Representative of the Master’s Degree in Psycho-gerontology
  • Carmela Martínez Vispo. Representative of the Master’s Degree in General Health Psychology
  • Cristina Gómez Román. Representative of the Master’s Degree in Psychology
• Representatives of knowledge areas of departments based at the centre:
  • Constantino Arce Fernández. Representative of the Behavioural Science Methodology Area
  • Mónica Lindín Novo. Representative of the Psychobiology Area
  • Xosé Antón Gómez Fraguela. Representative of the Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment Area
  • Mauro Rodríguez Casal. Representative of the Social Psychology Area
  • Mª José Sampedro Vizcaya. Representative of the Basic Psychology Area
  • Arturo X. Pereiro Rozas. Representative of the Evolutionary Psychology and Education Area
• Representative of knowledge areas of departments not based at the centre: Manuel Vilariño Vázquez
• Students’ representatives:
  • Carlos Dopico Casal