The University of Iowa College of Education’s Telepsychology Training Clinic (TPTC) was created to better serve rural Iowans by bringing high-quality psychological services to their communities.
Staffed by Counseling Psychology doctoral trainees, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty, TPTC offers free, short-term counseling (5-10 sessions) to Iowans who may have limited access to mental health care.
A recent Daily Iowan article looks at how this telepsychology program is impacting Iowa by improving mental health care access for rural individuals.
The following excerpt is from the DI article:
“About 220 miles from Iowa City lies the small town of Algona, a community built on a foundation of farming and family businesses, known statewide for its rugged forests and beloved annual festivals.
One Algona native, Aubrey McEnroe, grew up farming her family’s land with her father and cherishes her rural roots. Now, as a third-year doctoral candidate in the counseling psychology department at the University of Iowa, she is working to give back to her community through access to mental health care.
As an undergraduate student at the UI, McEnroe experienced a bit of disorientation in accustoming herself to the new community and environment, which is a challenge many students coming from a rural community may face.
“Coming from a smaller community which I really enjoyed and am really grateful to have grown up there, I did have a little bit of a culture shock coming to the University of Iowa,” McEnroe said. “I remember walking into my first lecture hall and having the lecture be as big as my high school was.”
McEnroe’s focus as a Ph.D. candidate is within the Telepsychology Training Clinic, a branch of the Rural Psychology Collaborative at the UI. It was designed with the mission in mind to better serve rural Iowans through community-based research and practice.”