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Preinternship Summary and Preinternship Verification Tutorial
For applicants applying preinternship hours towards licensure

Preinternship Summary and Preinternship Verification Tutorial

NOTE:  The statutory requirements for a preinternship can be found in subsection E of A.R.S. § 32-2071.  Also review the Rules (the Arizona Administrative Code or A.A.C.) related to preinternships.  A.A.C R4-26-209 and R4-26-210 are specific to supervised experiences.  Also see R4-26-203, as well as R4-26-109 & -110, if applicable.

"Preinternship" is the term the Arizona Board uses to identify a supervised professional experience that takes place during the applied psychology doctoral program while the student is completing didactic course requirements under subsection A, paragraph 4 of A.R.S. § 32-2071.  It is preliminary training that prepares the grad student for an internship. 

  • Other states, provinces and/or educational institutions may refer to preinternships as practicums or externships.
  • Preinternships are completed prior to completing a predoctoral internship and are an integral part of the applied psychology doctoral program. 
  • Arizona statutes and rules specify that no more than 1,500 hours of preinternship(s) may be applied towards licensure.  Please include all the preinternship hours you are applying towards licensure. The critical piece is that the hours being submitted for approval for licensure meet all requirements in statutes and rules. 
  • Preinternships are not interchangeable with internships. The requirements of an internship are found in subsections C, D, F and H of A.R.S. § 32-2071. 
  • One clear statutory difference between a preinternship and an internship is found in subsection C of the above noted statute. Subsection C states, "The applicant shall complete relevant didactic courses of the [doctoral] program required under subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section before starting the supervised professional experiences as described pursuant to subsection F of this section [internship]." 

 

Forms Required if Applying Preinternship(s) Toward Licensure

Go to the Forms for Psychologist Applications (Forms) page to download the forms referenced in this tutorial. 

NOTE:  Board staff cannot tell an applicant how to fill out these forms beyond this tutorial.  An email with a request for assistance will be replied to with a link back to this page. If in doubt, please consult with your program's director of clinical training or a supervisor. You may also wish to provide them with a link to this tutorial. 

Supervised Preinternship Experience Summary

The Supervised Preinternship Experience Summary (summary spreadsheet) is the first form for preinternships on the Forms page. It is a single page containing a spreadsheet that, once completed, will provide the applicant with a summary of all their preinternship experiences and categories of hours the Board needs to determine if requirements in statutes and rules have been met. This is a tool for both the applicant and the Board.  If the applicant is applying preinternship hours towards licensure, this completed form must be uploaded by the applicant with the application. 

  • This single page contains a spreadsheet with columns for specific categories of hours completed for each preinternship site. 
  • In each row, the applicant may list each site at which they completed training, one row for one site, in chronological order. This is the most common way of filling out the summary spreadsheet. 
  • Other applicants have completed multiple semesters or years at the same site, but received credit for different courses, and have listed the site for each semester or year on a different row, even though the site is the same. This is acceptable. 
  • Still others have completed two or more part-time preinternships at multiple sites during the same period of time, and listed each site chronologically, with overlapping dates. This is also acceptable. 
  • If in doubt, an applicant should consult with their clinical director for the most appropriate organization for their preinternship supervised experiences. Board staff cannot tell an applicant how to fill out the forms beyond this tutorial. 
Supervised Preinternship Experience Verification

The Supervised Preinternship Experience Verification has three pages.  The applicant is expected to fill out all of page 1 and Section B on page 2. This latter page is the Preinternship Site page, or simply the Site page.  Details about each category of hours that need to be provided are below. If you do not have a copy of your training records, please contact your clinical training director for copies. Do not complete these forms from memory! Accuracy is extremely important. Inaccuracy has historically caused months of delay. 

  • When entering hours on page 2 - the Preinternship Site page - use decimals rounded to quarter hours for minutes.
    • 15 minutes = .25; 
    • 30 minutes = .5 and
    • 45 minutes = .75.  
Preinternship Site - Page 2 of Verification: 

If the applicant received training at multiple preinternship sites, additional Preinternship Site pages should be downloaded and completed  - one Site page for each preinternship site, or each row on the summary chart. These should not be combined into one PDF. The additional Site pages should be sent as individual files. Please see further details on the Forms page for the preinternship verification.  

  • Once the applicant has completed the summary chart and Sections A and B of the verification form with any additional Site pages, the summary chart should be uploaded with the application, and the entire verification (all three pages) with any additional Site pages must be submitted to the applicant's doctoral program's DCT for completion. 
  • The verifier, usually the doctoral program's DCT, is expected to complete the remaining section on page 2 and all of page 3, then submit the verification to the Board by emailing it directly to [email protected]. The verifier may send the verification to the applicant as well, but any copies received from the applicant to the Board will be considered rejected. As a primary source verification, the completed verification form must be received in the Board's office directly from the verifier in order to be valid. Email is preferred to [email protected]. 
     

Preinternship Categories of Hours

If you are applying preinternship hours towards licensure, you must also upload a copy of the completed summary chart with your application. 

The column titles on the summary chart are essentially the same as what is found on the Preinternship Site page in the verification form. The Site page is downloadable by itself on the Forms page. You can download as many copies as needed. 

NOTE: Don't waste time trying to combine additional Site pages with the 3-page verification.  Combining form-fillable PDFs while the fillable fields are active will cause the data on all Site pages to merge. You will end up with all site pages containing the exact same data and have to start over again to fill out the additional Site pages. 

  • Total Number of Supervised Experience Hours:  List the TOTAL OVERALL number of hours you worked (include all types of hours including but not limited to direct hours, indirect hours, administrative duties such as report writing, supervision hours and all activities) for the entire experience being verified.  These are your hours overall for the entire supervised professional experience (SPE). Even though it is first in the table after the site and class information, it is the total sum of all of your hours for this site. This column corresponds with the Total Number of Supervised Experience Hours on the Site page for this experience (pg 2 of the verification). 
  • Direct Client/Patient Contact Hours (direct hours):  These are the hours you spent in direct client or patient contact, face to face in person or via telepractice. A.R.S. § 32-2071(E)(4)(b) states, "At least twenty-five percent of the supervised preinternship professional experiences must be devoted to face-to-face patient-client contact." An easy formula to determine if your direct hours for this experience meet the minimum requirements, take the total number of SPE hours and multiply it by 0.25.  The sum of this equation is the minimum number of direct hours required.
  • For direct hours only, applicants may combine the total number of supervised hours for all preinternship sites, and the total number of direct hours for each preinternship site. For example, hypothetically, Justin Example has 3 preinternship sites where he practiced a total of 500 hours at each site.  He completed 90 direct hours at Site A, 130 direct hours at Site B, and 175 direct hours at Site C.  For each site, 500 overall total hours times 0.25 equals 125 minimum direct hours.  At Site A, Justin did not complete enough direct hours to meet Arizona's requirements. However, per A.R.S. § 32-2071(E)(3), these preinternship experiences can be combined, which is further explained in Substantive Policy Statement (SPS) SP.01-17: Calculation of Face-to-Face Patient-Client Contact for Supervised Preinternship Hours. With the three sites combined, Justin has 1,500 preinternship hours he is applying towards licensure. 1,500 x 0.25 = 375 minimum total of direct hours. This is the minimum that Justin's combined direct hours must meet or exceed to meet Arizona's requirements.  Justin's direct hours for all three sites combined equals 395,  20 hours over the minimum requirement.  Justin will be relieved that even though his first preinternship experience was deficient in direct hours, it may be okay because when his total hours and direct hours are combined, they meet requirements. 
  • Hours Worked per Week:  This is the average number of hours you worked at this site per week. Your weekly hours may have varied quite a bit over the entire experience, but only one number is expected here. A range of hours is not acceptable. Just figure the average by adding up the number of hours you worked each week, and divide by the number of weeks. That sum is what is wanted for this field. No plus signs or tildies (~) are acceptable, either. 
  • Total Face to Face Individual Supervision:  Whether in-person or via telepractice, this is the total overall number of hours in which you and your supervisor met one-on-one and reviewed your delivery of direct psychological services during the entirety of the experience.
    • Per A.R.S. § 32-2071(E)(4)(d), you must have 2 hours of contemporaneous supervision,
    • 50% or more of which must be individual supervision for every 20 hours of the experience in order to apply the experience towards licensure.
    • An easy formula to determine if the individual supervision meets minimum requirements is to take the total number of supervised hours and divide it by 20. The sum of this equation is the minimum number of hours needed for this category of face-to-face individual supervision.  If your logs demonstrate that your face-to-face individual supervision is less than this sum, this experience may not qualify to be applied towards licensure.
    • Unlike direct hours, supervision must be contemporaneous, and therefore cannot be combined.
  • Total Face to Face Group Supervision:  Whether in-person or via telepractice, this is the total number of hours in which you, along with other doctoral trainees and at least one supervisor, reviewed and discussed delivery of direct psychological services during the entirety of the experience. Group supervision is not required, but is acceptable if it is no more than 50% of the minimum requirement for the total overall face to face supervision. 
  • Total Face-to-Face (Group + Individual) Supervision:  This is the sum of your total face-to-face individual plus group supervision. A.R.S. § 32-2071(E)(4)(d) states that there must be 2 hours of contemporaneous supervision for every 20 hours of the experience, with at least 1 hour, or 50% or more of the total supervision hours being individual supervision. If there’s more than one doctoral trainee in the meeting with the supervisor, it is not individual supervision. The combined total of individual & group face-to-face supervision should equal or exceed 10% of your total number of supervised hours. If your total supervision is less than this sum, the experience may not qualify to be applied towards licensure.
  • Weekly Face-to-Face Individual Supervision:  A.R.S. § 32-2071(E)(4)(c) states, "Every twenty hours of supervised preinternship professional experience must include the following:.... (c) At least one hour per week of regularly scheduled contemporaneous in-person individual supervision per twenty hours of supervised preinternship professional experience that addresses the direct psychological services provided by the student."  This question requires the total number of individual face-to-face supervision received each week in order to determine if this statute has been met. REMINDER: You must have two hours of contemporaneous face to face supervision per 20 hours worked, one at least of which MUST be individual supervision.  If you worked 40 hours in a week, you need to have had two hours of supervision by the 20-hour mark, one or more of which must be individual supervision, and up to one hour may be group supervision. If you only worked 10 hours in a week, the one hour of supervision MUST be individual supervision.
  • Weekly Face-to-Face Group Supervision:  Group supervision is not required for licensure, but is acceptable for up to 50% of the weekly supervision hours.
  • Weekly Face-to-Face Individual + Group Supervision Totals: This is a total arrived at by averaging the weekly totals of individual and group supervision. The amount of supervision per week will likely have varied if the number of hours worked per week varied. Therefore, the average number of supervision hours per week is what is expected here. 

NOTE for Applicants and Verifiers:  PLEASE DO NOT list a range of numbers, or use plus signs or tildies (~) before or after the number of hours for any of the above fields. Historically, this has caused the Board to wonder if the verifier has provided the exact number, and has caused questions that have delayed substantive review and/or approval of the application.

If your preinternship experience does not meet the above criteria, it may not meet the requirements to be applied towards licensure. If this is the case, please consider applying additional internship hours or postdoctoral supervised hours to meet the 3,000 hour requirement for licensure.