Forensic Services at the University of Denver’s Professional Psychology Clinic
The Professional Psychology Clinic (PPC) is the training Clinic for the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver. The PPC has provided low cost, high quality psychological services to Denver’s community for over 30 years. It is staffed by more than 100 doctoral students, who are supervised by licensed clinical psychologists. The PPC offers affordable and confidential mental health care, and without time limit services. Services provided include individual therapy, family therapy, couples therapy, group therapy, and assessment. We also have a psychiatrist on staff that sees clients on a once weekly basis. The PPC is not a 24 hour clinic so we do not accept clients who need intensive treatment or who are high-risk.
Fees
The fees for the services are based on a sliding-scale, according to a client’s income. Typically, fees range from $15.00 per hour to $60.00 per hour. Clients can request a fee reduction based on circumstances documented in a letter. Fees for testifying are $90 per hour, regardless of client’s income.
For forensic evaluations, clients are informed about the total cost of the evaluation and are to pay half at the first testing session. They are told that the balance must be paid before a report is submitted to the Court/probation/attorney. The fees for the evaluation are based on the client’s income. Fees for evaluations range from $300 to $1500.
Forensic Services
Since the Fall of 1999, the PPC has offered psychological services related to legal matters. Some services are offered through the Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service, and Training (Denver FIRST).
These services have included:
- Psychotherapy for court mandated clients;
- Child/family evaluations (including parental responsibility and parenting time evaluations, abuse/neglect evaluations, and termination of parental rights evaluations; adoption evaluations);
- Civil litigation evaluations (social security disability evaluations; personal injury evaluations; evaluations in order to receive benefits, services, compensation; guardianship issues);
- Restoration to competency treatment;
- Animal maltreatment evaluations and therapy;
- Criminal evaluations (mental status at the time of the offense evaluations, school or fire threat/risk assessments, competency evaluations, sentencing evaluations);
- Immigration evaluations (Asylum, Hardship, T visa, U visa, N648, etc.); and
- Fitness for duty evaluations (related to their job, etc.).
In addition, the PPC has conducted full psychological assessments (including cognitive and personality testing) to assist special advocates in their recommendations to the Courts. The evaluations consist of lengthy individual interviews, parent-child interactional sessions and observation of supervised parenting time (if necessary), psychological testing, contact with collateral sources, review of legal and relevant material, and submission of comprehensive reports to the Court. Students have also been subpoenaed to testify and have been admitted as expert witnesses.
Some services may be available in languages other than English via an interpreter.
Referral Process
Attorneys or the Court can contact me directly at Lavita.Nadkarni@du.edu to assess whether their case is appropriate for referral to our clinic. Once the client is deemed appropriate, the client would need to contact our clinic at 303-871-3626 and inform the clinic that he/she has spoken to me and that I told her/him to follow through with a phone screen (about 10-15 minutes). The phone screen will be given to me to ensure the client is appropriate for our clinic and the client will then be placed on our waiting list. The length of the waiting list varies, but can last anywhere from one week to two months. I am willing to submit a letter to the Court explaining the client’s status on our waiting list and a possible time frame for the completion of an evaluation if the client/attorney/Court wishes.
Contact
Lavita Nadkarni, Ph.D.
Director of Forensic Studies
University of Denver-GSPP
2450 South Vine Street
Denver, CO 80208
303-871-3877
Lavita.nadkarni@du.edu