Watershed University
Therapists in our group are required to go through additional rigorous training beyond the graduate level Masters education. Watershed University guides the clinical development and training of all our therapists for the first five years of their professional development. Below is a brief description of the courses taken throughout those first few years.
WU101 Mission Orientation
The first step in your training and preparation is to know about what makes us who we are and what drives us as an organization. This is essential as you grow in your journey with us. Every therapist enters this line of work because we all want to do some good and to make a difference. But at some point, we all want to know how that looks like beyond the four walls of our therapy room. In this lesson series, we’ll unpack for you the vision and mission so you can feel connected to the BIG picture all throughout your growth with us both personally and professionally.
Instructor: Ly Tran
Duration: 5 Sessions
WU102 Basic Training
The first few months of doing therapy can be overwhelming and terrifying. It’s natural for every new therapist to feel both excited and insecure about entering into the work of doing counseling. This course is designed to give new therapists a crash course on essential things to know like basic assessments, case management, HIPAA regulation, etc. The objective is to get you feeling as equipped as you possibly can in a short amount of time as you begin seeing clients for the first time.
Instructor: Dieula Previlon
Duration: 8 Sessions
WU201 Watershed Systematic Therapy
Ask most seasoned therapists and they’ll tell you they’ve got a framework or system that works well for them. It may be a method or approach that’s clearly laid out for them like DBT, Gottman, or Attachment Theory. For others it may be a compilation of a few that works and makes sense for how they prefer to do therapy and what they find is effective for their clients. The objective of this course is to give you a very detailed and structured framework or system that will help you to advance your ability to work with a wide range of clients as quickly as possible. We want everyone on our team to at least be familiar with this system and to know how to use it. As you progress and grow, we fully expect for you to develop your own system that work for you. But until you become a seasoned therapists capable of creating your own system, it’ll help you have our system to work with as you develop your own.
Instructor: Ly Tran
Duration: 20 Sessions
WU301 Process Group
Now that you have your basics down, it’s time to focus on making sure you’re growing personally. Before you can truly walk along side your clients and the emotional turmoil that comes along with doing the hard work of therapy, we want to ensure you’re able to do the work yourself. This chapter of your training will involve being a part of a process group where you can dive deep and dive well into your own process work. This is a great and safe place to challenge yourself and to grow along side your therapists colleagues.
Instructors: Jenny Wang, Laura Harrison, Dieula Previlon, Calvin Burns
Duration: 25 Sessions
WU401 Methods & Certifications Survey
At this point in your training, we begin to explore the next stages of your development as a mental health professional. Having completed your basic training and a couple years of in-session experience under your belt, we now begin to explore the various popular and in-demand options that are out there in terms of specialization and certifications. Methods such as Gottman, EMDR, CPRT, CSAT, etc; this course seeks to survey the most in-demand areas of the mental health field and so you can make better and informed decisions on whether or not to pursue a particular specialization. The format involves an interviewer from our group that will interview experts in these different areas. This will help to give you a sneak peak of what it’s like to specialize in that particular area of clinical work and what it’ll take to do it.
Instructors: Various Experts
Duration: 20 Sessions
WU501 Specialized Cohort
To help continue to foster advancement and development of your clinical abilities, this last course will place you in a small group cohort with other clinicians that are specialized in a particular area. Select from Marriage & Systems Cohorts, Parenting & Kids Cohorts, Addiction Cohorts, Trauma, etc. This experience is on-going so there is no end to these “open groups” in which you can jump in and out of depending on the kind of discussion and development you’d like to pursue. At this point in your training, you will have created a strong base and framework to do the general work of therapy, but now become more specialized in a particular area that suits your interests and gifts.
Instructors: Various Group Leaders
Duration: On-Going
WU601 Leadership Development
For those looking to take their growth to another level within our group, we offer leadership training to take on various roles in our organization. That includes training to become an Instructor in Watershed University, Clinical Supervisor, Clinical Director, Business Operations or Marketing Director, or even Equity Partner in the launching of new locations. If you’re aligned with the overall vision and direction of where we’re going as an organization, there’s potentially another step of growth and development for you as a leader.
Instructor: Ly Tran
Duration: 8-10 Sessions
WUX01 Archives & Miscellaneous Training
Over the years we have had various trainings that don’t quite fit within the core curriculum outlined above. However, every training we’ve conducted we continue to archive and keep available for all our therapists to view and learn from. Think of it as hours and hours of additional education that’s accessible any time and any where and at your convenience.
WUX02 Specialized 3rd Party Training
From time to time, we may host a large 3rd party training on a particular method (EMDR, CSAT, etc) in an attempt to help defray and reduce the cost for you as the therapist. These aren’t regular but will be offered when the demand and opportunity is there to offer such a course.