Future Clinical Psychologists Sample Work in the Field

Psychology students with a career interest in Clinical Psychology had the chance to experience work in the field on a placement at a local day care centre.

Heswall Day Centre is part the Wirral Evolutions organisation, specialising in helping those with special needs and learning difficulties acquire new skills and take part in a variety of activities. Four first year Psychology students took the opportunity to transfer their classroom learning into the arena of the local community, which not only boosts their UCAS university application profiles but inspired some future career options.

AS Level student, Leah Coathup, said: “I thought it was great. It gave me a feel of how to adapt to situations and learn, depending on other people’s behaviour.”

Leah, who studies English Literature and Applied Science alongside Psychology, explained: “It was putting what we’ve been learning in Psychology class into a real life context. OCD symptoms, for example, were something really interesting to see in real life, genuine cases. It made me realise how much I, and other people, over-exaggerate how obsessive we are about things, like the books I put in alphabetical order or the light switches I’ll turn on or off: it’s very far from the extremes that we’ve been learning about and have now witnessed.”

Leah concluded: “After spending time at the centre, I’m definitely thinking about going into Clinical Psychology.”

Fellow first year, Chloe Gaunt, also has her sights set on a career in the psychological field, and spoke of the range of activities that she got involved with after the Heswall Day Centre staff fully briefed all the students on safety precautions and policies: “It was fab. I got involved with doing Zumba, drama, art classes and stuck around for dinner time with the clients too.

“It was all so relevant to what we’d been learning. It was right there in front of us and great to learn from. The people were so welcoming and funny, I enjoyed the entire day.”

Despite not being able to have direct one-to-one contact with the clients due to age restrictions for under 18s, Chloe, Leah and fellow visiting Sixth Form College students, Katie Lawson and Rebekah Jones have all been invited back to the day centre over the summer and beyond – an offer which most if not all of them will take up.

Chloe said: “From my time there, it’s made up my mind that I’d definitely like to follow that path and work with that age group. I’d like to work with adults.”

Psychology teacher, Roy Owen, said: “Each of the girls had expressed an interest in studying Psychology at university and I believe that such work experience will be invaluable to them, not only on their UCAS applications but also in their Psychology-related careers in the future. Such placements are something that we hope to be able to offer to our students each year in Psychology.”