Morningstar Counseling and Consultation, P.C. aims to lead the disruption of oppressive mental health education, training, and service delivery systems to honor and reclaim indigenous healing practices as standardized care.
In service of this vision, Morningstar promotes hope and healing for Native/American Indian children, adults and families by providing culturally appropriate and competent therapeutic services through a holistic approach. This holistic approach represents a circular model of well-being and health through a relational worldview.
Our training objectives are:
We accept students from master’s and doctoral programs in counseling, clinical, and school psychology. We do ask that you have one semester of practicum experience (at minimum) prior to starting your training year with Morningstar. Our supervisors utilize a decolonized framework for supervision and consultation. Our supervisors have unique experience in serving Native/American Indian reservations and training clinicians to serve in these communities.
*Supervisors are licensed clinicians (i.e., counselors and psychologists) and will be matched by the requirements of your program.
Externs with Morningstar are invited to attend staff meetings and weekly case consultations with staff. They have the opportunity to attend trainings focused on serving the Native/American Indian communities. There are also opportunities for outreach, groups, facilitating presentations, and we are always looking for creative ways to reach the communities we serve.
Externs are expected to be on-site 18-25 hours/week over a minimum of 2 days (based on the requirements of their program). Externs are required to start the second week of August to go through orientation and training. The externship year goes through the third week of May.
Externs participate in an extensive orientation beginning in early August. This orientation covers clinical and cultural training. The orientation covers all major services and activities of Morningstar, as well as tours of the reservations, history of the tribal communities, cultural practices, and didactics focused on serving tribal communities. Time is built in to allow relationship-building with each other as a cohort, and with other staff members whom the externs will be working with.
Externs typically receive at least 2 hours of supervision per week, 1 hour of which is individual supervision by the primary supervisor. The primary supervisor is involved in an ongoing supervisory relationship with the extern and has primary professional clinical responsibility for the cases on which they provide supervision. An extern may have different primary supervisors engaged in providing individual supervision during the course of the placement.
The other 1+ hour of supervision is regularly scheduled cohort supervision (1-1.5 hour(s) per week). At different points in the externship, additional supervision may be provided for outreach activities and/or supervision of group therapy.
*The availability and duration of cohort supervision may vary year to year depending on the size of the cohort, but externs will always receive at least 1 hour of individual supervision by their primary supervisor.
Externs and their supervisors are involved in mutual formal and informal evaluations throughout the year. They are encouraged to discuss goals for supervision, progress being made toward those goals and areas of supervision needing attention. Each evaluation period, supervisors and externs complete a formal written evaluation of each other and the supervisory experience. Externs are also asked to evaluate the training program itself. Information gathered from evaluations is used to assess externs’ progress and to make needed changes in the supervision process and/or the training program.
Morningstar Counseling and Consultation, P.C. is excited to be accepting externship applications for the upcoming academic year. Applications are generally accepted January through March, with interviews taking place through May. Most applicants are selected by May with the application cycle closing by June.
If you have any questions about the application process please contact the Externship Coordinator, Dr. Jaynee Bohart.