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 applications is Sunday, December 1, 2024, 11:59 PM 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 and assessment hours of 50 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 notify applicants who are invited to interview through the NMS Interview website by Monday, December 23, 2024.

Zoom Interviews: The Zoom interviews will take place Monday through Thursday, January 6-9, 2025. 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 virtual open house for those candidates who feel strongly about in some way “visiting” a site before making their decision. The open house includes an introduction of the whole staff (including interns), Q&A with the current interns only, and Q&A with the training director who presents a brief PowerPoint with photos of the center. The open house occurs after we have determined our rank order list, and before candidates are required to submit theirs. We welcome candidates to learn as much as they can about us to decide about best fit without concern that their visit may influence our rankings of them. Again, we do not consider open house attendance in any way in our ranking decisions. We hold the open house in January to ensure sufficient time for candidates to input their ranking decisions. Candidates are welcome to contact the Training Director (bonniebp@uw.edu), other staff members, and current 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.