Oct 2, 2020

How To Lead A Successful First

Virtual Residency
Erika Liljedahl, Jim Iaccino & Lisa Faille
Goals of Residency
● As a requirement to graduate from the Online MA Professional
Counselor Licensure Track in Forensic Psychology, students must
attend two onground Residencies
● The main goals of these Residencies are to:
1. Provide students with learning hands-on counseling skills
2. Allow students to apply the knowledge they have acquired
through their courses
3. Have the opportunity for students to engage in face-to-face
mentoring with faculty and invited speakers
● Evaluation of these Residencies has been very good (low 4s to 5 on a
Likert 5-point scale)
Changing Format to Virtual Residency
● Given the COVID-19 crisis and assuring the safety of students,
faculty, staff and other attendees, this program adapted our onground
Residency to an online format. This entailed adjustments:
1. Establishing guidelines for student conduct in virtual settings
2. Institutionally switching from GTM to Zoom software for meetings
3. Using small group, break-out sessions to discuss topics further
4. Adding more speakers without the additional expense
● Our first Virtual Residency was implemented in May 2020 with 83
students attending all sessions (162 students attended the keynote;
95% response rate to the survey).
● Lessons learned
Student Evaluations of Virtual Residency
Descriptive Statistics

Survey Questions N Mean Std.

Overall, I was satisfied with the program 79 4.73

Deviation
.59
Ratings Range: 4.2 to 4.9
I was satisfied with the availability of faculty 79 4.92 .27

Top 3 Overall Ratings:

during the residency.
I was satisfied with the availability of the 79 4.87 .33

• Convenience of virtual
Department Manager during the residency.
I liked the length of the residency. .68
79 4.64

Having a virtual residency is convenient to me. 79 4.93 .29 residency (4.93)

May 14: Key talk (FBI agent)- how satisfied were you? 76 4.77 .60 • Satisfaction with faculty
May 14: Faculty Panel: Who Does What in the Field
of Mental Health, and How to Work with Them- how
79 4.55 .73 availability (4.92)
satisfied were you?
May 14: Toxic Boss Trauma: How to Survive, 79 4.37 1.07
• Satisfaction with Department
Transform and Thrive- how satisfied were you?
Manager availability (4.87)
May 14: Teaching Clients Resilience (Given COVID- 79 4.50 .73
19 or any other significant life interruptions) - how
satisfied were you?
May 14: How to Read State Regulations: A Mock 79 4.39 .90 Top 3 Content Session Ratings:
Case AND How to Communicate with Your Licensure
Board- how satisfied were you? • Key Talk by FBI Agent (4.77)
May 14: Practicum/Internship Panel- how satisfied
• Cinematic Serial Killer
79 4.59 .86
were you?
May 15: Group work – Introduction- how 79 4.68 .63
satisfied were you?
May 15: Group work small group sessions- how 79 4.62 .82
Research Project with film
satisfied were you?
May 15: Cinematic Serial Killer Project: Achieving 66 4.77 .52
coding exercise (4.77)
Research Skills Interrater Reliability in Film Coding
(and Biases): Group Activity- how satisfied were • Small Group Work discussing
you?
May 15: Taking a Critical View of Research- how 37 4.16 1.50 therapy video scenarios (4.68)
satisfied were you? (If you attended the Serial
Killer panel, please skip).
Concluding Remarks & Contact Information
● Based on these results with our first Virtual Residency, we will continue to
offer at least one Residency in this format per academic year
● The format to these Residencies will be patterned after the first one and
include the following:
1. Having outside-of-the department speakers deliver Keynote Addresses
2. Involving students in small group activities
3. Showcasing the forensic research of our faculty to encourage further
student scholarship
● For more details about our Virtual Residencies, please contact the Online MA
Forensic Psychology Chair, Erika Liljedahl, at
eliljedahl@thechicagoschool.edu or office phone 312.379.1670.

THANK YOU!