Consultation for Mental Health Clinicians Working with Older Adults

You are likely already seeing more older adults and their families in your practice than you did five years ago.  Would you like to feel more comfortable with this population?  We are offering a special opportunity to enhance geropsychology competence for licensed mental health clinicians  (i.e., psychologists, counselors, MFTs, and social workers) with some practice experience but limited formal training in working with older adults. This is an opportunity to participate in a small consultation group led by an experienced geropsychologist.

What’s included?

  • Six monthly 90-minute small group (up to 6 participants) video conference (e.g., HIPAA-compliant Zoom) sessions
  • Each consultation session is organized around discussion of a case (participants rotate in bringing a specific case to the group); all participants share perspectives, lessons learned, and implications for their own practices with each case.
  • A range of practice issues can be addressed (e.g., intake assessment, treatment planning, within-session implementation, integration of family and other care partners, legal and ethical concerns, practice management)
  • Continuing education credits

This program is intended to provide expert feedback and resources for addressing older adult mental health needs across care settings and presenting concerns. This collegial consultation opportunity is not clinical supervision; participants must maintain their own clinical license. Rather, this consultation group provides an opportunity to receive state-of-the-art professional consultation from geropsychologists aimed to advance clinical practice with older adults.

Applicants must:

  • Be an independently licensed psychologist, counselor, MFT, or social worker in the US
  • Provide direct clinical service in your professional role
  • Have at least three older adult clients in your regular caseload

The package of 6 consultation sessions costs $500

Click here to apply

This program was developed by a subcommittee created at the Building Bridges Conference: Generating Resources for Geropsychology Education, supported by The Council of Professional Geropsychology Training Programs (CoPGTP) and Society of Clinical Geropsychology (SCG), among many other organizations. This program is being offered in partnership with The Optimal Aging Center.

Frequently Asked Questions

In support of improving patient care, Rush University Medical Center is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team. Rush University Medical Center designates this live activity for 9.00 CE credits in psychology. No other specific CE types are offered at this time. Please check with your state to see if your profession can claim APA accredited CE credits. Note that the State of New York has not approved this program for CE.
All participants must read the Special Issue of Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice on the Foundational Knowledge Competencies in Geropsychology (Volume 29, March 2022) in its entirety as baseline knowledge. This content will be provided to learners who do not have access. Completion of the E4 Center of Excellence in Behavioral Health Disparities Foundational Competencies in Older Adult Mental Health is also accepted as baseline knowledge.
Approximately 45 minutes will be spent discussing a case-specific consultation questions posed by consultees and approximately 45 minutes will be allocated for additional case discussion. There is some flexibility to negotiate consultation focus depending on your experience, setting, and caseload.
If you discover after registering that you are not able to attend any of the sessions, we anticipate that you will be able to participate in a future group, or other arrangements may be possible.
By attending at least 5 of 6 sessions, you will be awarded a certificate of completion.
No, audio/videotape case review is not part of this consultation.
No. Consultation is live and will not be recorded for future learning.
Consultation groups will consist of up to 6 consultees and one consultant.
This program is designed for people who do not already specialize in geropsychology or have very little formal training in working with older adults. If you’re a geropsychologist and looking for a consultation group, please contact us and we’ll keep you in mind for future potential groups.
First or third Fridays at 10:15am PST, depending on participant interest and availability. Other times may also be available based on interest. Please reach out for more details.

Meet the Consultants

Dr. Janet Anderson Yang, Ph.D., ABPP, is a licensed, board certified clinical geropsychologist. She has been the Clinical Director at Heritage Clinic, a mental health and adult day care center serving older adults for 30 years and has run the Heritage Clinic APA approved psychology internship for 17 years. She trains graduate students in psychology and other mental health fields, supervises multi-disciplinary teams and teaches clinical geropsychology.

Her areas of expertise include psychotherapy with older adults, community mental health, psychotherapy for persons with psychotic illness and for persons with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, caregiver interventions, life review and reminiscence, grief and loss, enhancing meaning in later life and supervising mental health staff and trainees.  She has published articles and provided trainings & presentations on these topics. She holds a private practice serving adults and older adults through telehealth in California and in person in Pasadena, CA.

Julia Kasl-Godley, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist. She completed her PhD in Clinical-Aging at the University of Southern California and her psychology internship and fellowship, both with an emphasis in geropsychology, at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.  Currently, she serves as clinical faculty at the Older Adult Counseling and Psychological Services program and the Berkeley Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Clinic, where she provides clinical supervision, didactic training and group consultation. Prior to her current positions, Dr. Kasl-Godley worked for 2 years in long-term care and served for 16 years as a staff psychologist at the VA Palo Alto Hospice and Palliative Care inpatient unit and palliative care consult service and as a faculty member of the Stanford/VA Palliative Care Interprofessional fellowship program.

During her tenure at the Palo Alto VA, Dr. Kasl-Godley served on the psychology training program’s selection, evaluation and training committees, and was the primary preceptor and supervisor psychology postdoctoral fellows, interns and practicum students. Her primary passion is teaching, training and supervising and in 2018, she received the Distinguished Clinical Mentorship Award, from the American Psychological Association’s Society of Clinical Geropsychology (SCG: Division 12, Section II).

Dr. Kasl-Godley also has served as a member of the American Psychological Association’s Working Group on End of Life Issues and Care; as faculty and trainer for the Education for Palliative and End-of-Life Care (EPEC) for Veterans project, faculty on the Advocating for Clinical Excellence—Transdisciplinary Palliative Care Education (ACE) Project and curriculum developer on a NIMH funded internet-based education project on end of life issues for mental health professionals. She still serves on the VA National Hospice and Palliative Care Employee Education System Planning Committee.  Her professional and scholarly interests include aging and mental health; grief and bereavement; caregiving; interprofessional health care teams and roles and training of psychologists, particularly within geropsychology and palliative care and process-based therapy and group therapy approaches.