Rotations

The Primary Rotation is at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution’s Mental Health Unit located just 30 minutes outside Tampa, Florida. Typically, 1 day a week is spent at a secondary rotation. Another day is spent primarily in training and supervision activities. The remaining 3 days each week are spent at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution where interns work throughout the year in our 100-bed inpatient Mental Health Unit. It houses a Crisis Stabilization Unit, a Transitional Care Unit, and Infirmary beds. Court commitments to the Correctional Mental Health Treatment Facility (CMHTF) and civil commitment hearings are held at the Mental Health Unit. These patients suffer from a wide array of disorders ranging from serious chronic mental illness and progressive disorders to transient crisis based disturbances. The more serious cases often require in-depth psychological assessments and diagnostic work-ups due to their complexity.

The Secondary Rotations are included to augment the intern's exposure to a wide range of patient populations, supervisors and correctional settings. Interns will spend one day a week at one of these Secondary Rotations during at least three quarters of the internship year. These rotations will include working with men in the outpatient setting at Zephyrhills CI, working with women in the inpatient unit at the Florida Women's Reception Center, providing outpatient and crisis management services to the women at Lowell CI.

Zephyrhills Correctional Institution Outpatient Service provides several opportunities for interns. First, they may work with male patients in a general outpatient setting providing individual, group and psychological assessment services. They may also complete more advanced rotations working with the geriatric population or with the medically impaired and hospice patients housed at Zephyrhills CI.

Florida Women’s Reception Center is the reception center for women entering our system. Mental health screening and evaluation is conducted here along with medical, security and classification screenings. The Women’s Reception Center also houses an inpatient mental health unit for women with a Crisis Stabilization Unit, a Transitional Care Unit and a Corrections Mental Health Treatment Facility (CMHTF). The CMHTF provides our highest level of mental health care and is equivalent to state hospital care. Admission is court ordered and forced treatment with psychotropic medication can also be court ordered there.

Lowell Correctional Institution is also located on the northern edge of Ocala, Florida. It is an exceptionally large female institution that is scheduled to soon grow to be the largest in the country. It has housing for youthful offenders, individuals on close management and those on death row. Training opportunities include psychological evaluation, provision of crisis intervention, and ongoing individual and group evidenced based therapy with women.

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