Train where the whole team is in the room.
We place master's and doctoral students alongside the clinicians who run the program: therapy, occupational therapy, speech, psychiatry and education, all working the same plan for the same child. Supervised practice, in a setting where the disciplines actually talk to each other.
Who we place.
NorthStar Day is a pediatric day-treatment program for children ages 5–12 in Palm Beach Gardens, and the clinical team is broad by design. That is what makes it worth training in: a student here sees how one child's plan gets built by several disciplines at once, rather than how one discipline works on its own.
We host placements for students in:
- Clinical mental health counseling
- Marriage and family therapy
- Social work
- Psychology
- Occupational therapy
- Speech-language pathology
- Expressive arts
Placements are based on what the program needs at the time, and we build them around the hours and competencies your school requires. Tell us what those are and we will tell you honestly whether we can meet them.
Doctoral psychology internship and post-doctoral residency pathways are run by Palm Beach Behavioral Health and Wellness, which Dr. Brandi Rials co-founded. If that is the stage you are at, their training programs (opens in a new tab) are the right door.
What a placement actually looks like.
You carry a supervised caseload, scaled to your stage of training. It is real clinical work with real children, and the plan you are working from is the same plan the rest of the team is working from.
Every week the therapist, the occupational therapist, the speech-language pathologist, the psychiatrist, the case manager and the educational coordinator are in the same room (or on the same call), looking at the same plan for each child in the program. That meeting is where the coordination actually happens. How much of it a placement includes is something we work out with you and your school, not something we will promise you here.
Every clinician on our team is trained in trauma-informed practice. Not just the therapists. The building is built for the clinical work too: sensory-aware spaces, low-stim rooms, a sensory gym, an outdoor nature space. If you want the longer version of what a day here looks like, it is on a day in the program.
Who you'd learn from.
Dr. Kelly Everson is a Florida Licensed Psychologist who co-founded NorthStar Day and serves as its Executive Director of Psychological Services and Training Director. Supervision here runs through her and the clinical leadership team.
Dr. Brandi Rials, also a Florida Licensed Psychologist, is the program's other co-founder and its Chief Clinical Officer. She directs the psychology training programs at NorthStar Day and at Palm Beach Behavioral Health and Wellness, and has taught graduate-level courses in lifespan development and expressive arts therapies with children. You can read about both of them, and the rest of the team you would be working beside, on leadership and our team.
What supervision means here is the same thing it means for the clinicians we employ: your supervisor is reading your notes and watching your work, not just signing paperwork, and caseloads are small enough that you actually know the children on them.
How to apply.
There is no application window and no portal. Placements open as the program needs them, and we hear about candidates from schools, from faculty, and from students directly.
Use the form at the foot of this page. Tell us your program and school, the kind of placement you need, and the discipline you are training in. We will email you back asking for your cover letter and CV — reply to that email with both attached and they reach the training team together.
Faculty and placement coordinators are welcome to write on a student's behalf, at the same address. And if you are further along than a placement — licensed, or close to it — the roles we hire for are on careers.
Tell us where you are
in your training.
Placements depend on what the program needs at the time, so we can't promise every inquiry a placement. Send us the short version here and we'll ask for the rest.