For 2025-2026, the Adult Track: Forensic Psychology will offer one internship position as described below:
Internship Focus: Focused training in forensic evaluation and treatment in an inpatient forensic hospital setting.
Primary Training Sites: ELMHS Forensic Hospital (Civil and Forensic units)
Days per week: 4 days per week inpatient treatment
Location: Jackson, LA
Primary Supervisors: Inpatient supervisors: Chelsea Mahler, Psy.D. (intervention) and Shannon Sanders, Ph.D (assessment)
Additional Supervisor: Amanda Gallagher, Ph.D. (forensic assessment)
Internship slots offer a broad range of training experiences, focused on forensic assessment and treatment as described in more detail below:
Adult Track Clinical Experiences and Other Training Opportunities
Click on a facility name to learn the details of training at each facility.
Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System (ELMHS)
Tulane’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences has partnered with Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System (ELMHS) to provide psychiatric and forensic services to adults, and in turn, provide Tulane trainees an opportunity to learn and practice clinical and forensic skills in an inpatient forensic facility. Located in Jackson, Louisiana (approximately 2 hours northwest of New Orleans), ELMHS is the only forensic inpatient psychiatric facility in Louisiana which specializes in the custody, care, evaluation, and treatment of forensic patients who are incompetent to stand trial and/or found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGBRI). ELMHS is operated by the Louisiana Department of Health and the Louisiana Office of Behavioral Health.
ELMHS is an integrated system of mental health care designed to provide a wide array of services within a multi-faceted system. Maintained within ELMHS are 573 licensed inpatient psychiatric and forensic beds, affiliated community residential settings with over 261 licensed and residential beds, and an array of forensic outpatient services. ELMHS is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization and certified by the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services. The hospital is comprised of two divisions: the East Division and the Forensic Division. The East Division, which houses a number of forensic patients, has 334 beds and the Forensic Division has 239 beds.
Inpatient services are staffed by multidisciplinary treatment teams comprised of board-certified forensic psychiatrists, social services, and nursing services. Each patient participates in a treatment program based on their individual needs and interests which may include psychiatric medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, substance abuse treatment, competency restoration, individual and/or group therapy, sex offender treatment, work therapy, and assistance with permanent supported housing upon discharge.
The psychology intern will train in two inpatient facilities within ELMHS. The East Division of ELMHS consists of three units providing care to civilly committed patients requiring long term psychiatric care, three Adult Community Group homes, and three units that house forensically-involved patients, including pretrial and adjudicated (NGRI) patients. The Forensic Division of ELMHS is a 239-bed inpatient adult forensic psychiatric hospital. The Forensic Division provides evaluation and treatment, including competency restoration to pretrial forensic patients and insanity acquittees. ELMHS-Forensic consists of three specialized units: 1) The Admissions and Special Security Area (ASSA) 2) the Intermediate Treatment Unit (ITU), and 3) the Crossroads Rehabilitation Unit (CRU).
The intern is expected to provide the following services under the supervision of a licensed psychologist:
- Forensic evaluations and assessments, including initial psychological screenings, malingering evaluations, violence risk assessments, and intellectual, personality, and psychopathology screenings and comprehensive evaluations
- Produce integrated forensic reports suitable for use in court
- Oversight of Behavior Support Plans (BSPs)
- Group therapy (e.g., Moral Reconation Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis)
- Competency Restoration (individual and group)
- Individual therapy
- Umbrella supervision of a Masters-level therapist (if available)
- Psychological consultation
- Work as a member of a multidisciplinary team
The intern on the Forensic Adult Track will spend four (4) days per week at ELMHS (located in Jackson, Louisiana) throughout the year. Two (2) days at ELMHS will be spent providing assessment services and two (2) days will be spent providing forensic intervention services.
Forensic Evaluations/Outpatient (Tulane School of Medicine)
Community-based interventions will be conducted in multiple settings, including as a forensic evaluator in the community, jails/courts, and in conducting remote competency/sanity evaluations/risk evaluations. The intern will work directly with a licensed Board-certified forensic psychologist to complete a wide variety of forensic evaluations, including competency to stand trial evaluations, mental state at the time of offense evaluations, violence risk assessments, mitigation/diminished capacity evaluations, worker’s compensation and disability evaluations, immigration evaluations, and other forensic evaluations of forensically-involved adults. Evaluations are completed in response to court orders and consultation and referral with attorneys, judges, the Office of the District Attorney, and public defender boards (federal and state defense boards) throughout the greater New Orleans area. Evaluations will be conducted both in person and via tele-assessment in Louisiana and in other states in which the primary supervisor is licensed. Forensic evaluations will be conducted in both criminal and civil matters. The intern will be expected to provide the following evaluation services under the direct supervision of a board-certified forensic psychologist:
- Competency to stand trial evaluations
- Immigration evaluations (federal competency evaluations)
- Mental state at the time of offense (MSO) evaluations
- Violence risk assessments
- Mitigation and diminished capacity evaluations
- Worker’s compensation and disability evaluations (civil forensic)
- Guardianship evaluations (civil forensic)
- Trauma and PTSD evaluations
- Intellectual evaluations
- Psychodiagnostic evaluations
- Fitness for Duty evaluations (FFD)
- Produce integrated forensic reports suitable for use in court
- Observe court testimony
