How do children and adolescents develop? How do emotional and behavioural disorders emerge, and how can they be prevented? How can you use scientific knowledge to advise schools? In the Master’s programme Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, you will learn how to apply your knowledge of developmental psychology in clinical practice.
During this one-year Master’s programme, you will learn all about the psychological care, treatment and support of children and young people. We will also address how policies and institutions can contribute to child development.
As a child and youth psychologist, you will study:
You will also learn knowledge and skills for assessing (diagnostics), treating (intervention), and preventing problematic youth development.
In addition to these topics, you will also learn about relevant societal issues, such as:
This programme is offered by various chair groups, which conduct research into:
Researchers from these programmes teach courses and supervise the students’ theses. Students also have the opportunity to take part in their research projects as research assistants.
In order to prevent and alleviate psycho-social problems in children and young people, a variety of perspectives are needed: pedagogical, medical, educational and sometimes legal. Students in this Master's programme will therefore learn to consider these ‘non-psychological’ factors as well. You can also enrol in elective courses in other fields of study. If you do a clinical internship, you may work as part of a multi-disciplinary team together with child psychiatrists, social-psychiatric caregivers, social workers and internal mentors.
The Master’s programme is structured in such a way that you can begin your internship immediately in September. If you decide to enrol in our Master’s programme, it is therefore vital that you start looking for an internship position in time. It becomes progressively more difficult to find an internship position if you start applying later in the year. Check the study programme page for more about the internships.
For information about the internship and application procedures, please contact our internship coordinator at [email protected] as soon as possible after enrolling in the Master’s programme.
You will develop into a scientist-practitioner, who is able to make a difference in the practice of child and adolescent psychology by tying the knowledge gained in theoretical courses to practical experience obtained during your internship.This Master's programme prepares you for a career as a care provider, diagnostician or policy consultant. You may also choose to continue your studies, as this programme qualifies you (in the Netherlands) for post-academic education as a clinical psychologist, school psychologist and the registration process for NIP Child- and Youth Psychologist/NIP Registered Psychologist/Child and Youth.
If you are a Dutch-speaking student, this Master's programme offers you the possibility to earn your NIP Basic Psychodiagnostics Registration (BAPD) (in Dutch) during your Master’s or afterwards. You can also apply for different postgraduate programmes (Healthcare Psychologist; in Dutch: Gezondheidszorgpsycholoog, Child and Adolescent Psychologist NIP/SKJ or School Psychologist) or pursue a PhD position. For international students, formal accreditation needs to take place at an individual level by the national union of psychologists of your home country.
With the Master’s programme Applied Cognitive Psychology, you will apply the most up-to-date knowledge of cognition to situations and solutions for problems that occur in daily life. Students will apply knowledge of human cognitive, sensory and motor systems in real-life situations.
During this one-year programme, you will learn about processing information, especially about how you can use that information to advise clients on how to improve communications. That knowledge is useful for making signage or advertising more effective, for example, or for making products more user-friendly.
Students also learn to come up with solutions for a wide range of problems that can occur in professional practice. Humans are dramatically changing their environment using increasingly complex technology, such as the Internet, social media, robotics and automation. In order to design a living environment that is well suited to human cognitive abilities, we must have a good understanding of how humans process knowledge and their skill at applying it.
This Master’s programme is internationally oriented, from the literature used in class to the opportunity to do an internship and write a thesis abroad, and from the option of attending electives at foreign universities to participating in international summer schools, research conferences or workshops.
Both our lecturers and our students have very diverse backgrounds. During the study programme, you will spend a lot of time learning to work in multi-disciplinary teams. Accurate and careful communication is vital to that process.
Once you have completed the Master’s programme, you will be a true academic professional who can apply scientific knowledge in day-to-day practice, such as acting as an independent consultant on ergonomic problems. As a member of an interdisciplinary team, you will contribute to solving these problems together with designers, policy makers, technicians, computer scientists and business experts. You can also advise on the sensory aspects of marketing communications. As a person with a Master’s degree, you will also have developed excellent verbal and written communication skills to communicate with all sorts of audiences.
Better education and training for all are of the utmost importance when it comes to developing our society. In this Master’s programme, you will learn to develop, evaluate and improve learning processes and learning environments from a variety of theoretical perspectives. You will do so by means of state-of-the-art methods and approaches in several different contexts; from a classroom setting to the non-profit and commercial sectors, and with a focus on people in all phases of life. This means that the person doing the learning may be a pupil, student or employee, but also a lecturer, educator or trainer, depending on the context. During the study programme, you will learn to optimise learning environments so that they meet the needs of the learners themselves and of society as a whole.
During the programme you will master an academic educational scientific and systematic approach. You will acquire and further develop theoretical knowledge of:
Read more about these characteristics under ‘Why in Utrecht?’
This Master’s programme is offered in a full-time variant (average of 40 hours of study per week) or a part-time variant (average of 20 hours of study per week).
