Alba Osorio was afraid to take her 4-year-old daughter Alice out in public because Alice might have a temper tantrum.

“The tantrums, she starts screaming and crying,” Osorio said, adding that her efforts to calm the child down were often unsuccessful. “We had to do something because this situation is hard for her and for us as the parents.”

Through word-of-mouth from a neighbor, she heard of a pair of programs offered through the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine that aims to help parents and guardians deal with outbursts, poor life skills and other challenging child behavior.

The Helping our Toddlers, Developing our Children’s Skills (HOT DOCS) and DOCS K-5 each are six-week courses sponsored by the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County that tap into the expertise of USF Health child and adolescent psychologists.

HOT DOCS is for children up to age 5 and covers basics, like eating, bathing, dressing and following directions, as well as managing tantrums. DOCS K–5 works with children up to fifth grade. It focuses on doing homework, staying safe, socializing and changing challenging behaviors.

Heather Agazzi, PhD, is a board-certified child and adolescent psychologist, a professor of pediatrics in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and director of the DOCS Parenting Programs. She said she recognized in her practice that dealing with child behavior was a problem for many parents in Hillsborough County.

“Early life-challenging behavior often leads to school failure and other problems,” Dr. Agazzi said. “We want to try and meet those children’s needs as early in life as possible.”

Heather Agazzi, PhD

Weekly sessions, offered in English and Spanish, include skills review, parenting tips, special play activities, plan development, coaching and feedback.

“We typically have three HOT DOCS classes running and one DOCS K-5 (class),” Dr. Agazzi said.

Cristina Ortiz took the class in 2006 and said she was amazed at the impact it had on her son. She was initially hired as a translator and, over the years, was promoted until she became program coordinator.

Cristina Ortiz

“Knowing all the struggle, I do understand what families go through, and I love that this program is available for them to bring them a lot of help—and not only what we provide through HOT DOCS but I also give them a lot of resources,” Ortiz said.

She also teaches the Spanish version of the class, which is necessary. According to a March 2020 Tampa Bay Times article, almost 40 percent of people identified as Spanish speakers in Hillsborough County have trouble speaking English.

For Osorio, the program has been a welcome help in curbing her daughter’s tantrums.

“It means a lot to us to have access to this program,” Osorio said. “To us, the program really works. . . . We saw a change in our daughter’s behavior at home, outside, at school, and every day is different now, and it’s better for her and for us.”

Registration fee for each course is $20 per participant for parents and caregivers.

To get information and sign-up, Call or email hotdocs@usf.edu
(813) 974-1048

As USF Health continues to rise in the ranks of elite academic medical centers, they have to keep enhancing their portfolio with quality programs for students, interns and fellows.  In April, they added a new program to their repertoire:  a newly accredited Pediatric Psychology Internship.

Heather Agazzi, PhD, USF Health psychology internship director and associate professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, explained that one of the strengths of the program is that it’s housed within the USF Health academic medical center.  The program offers doctoral degree interns excellent training with academic medical center psychologists as well as the opportunity to collaborate on interdisciplinary teams with pediatricians, psychiatrists, and other health professionals.

Several supervisors of the program provide a “generalist” type of training in which interns learn to work with youth of all ages.  Interns also participate in specialized pediatric psychology rotations including assessment and intervention of children with developmental disabilities including Autism Spectrum Disorder, as well as, disruptive behavior disorders, infant mental health and early childhood parent training interventions. The training in infant and early childhood mental health is unique to the USF Health psychology internship, as the opportunity to work with very young children is not often found in internships, Dr. Agazzi said.

“An accredited internship is a key component to strong clinical psychology training,” Dr. Agazzi said.  “It’s also instrumental in finding a great fellowship training. Having the accreditation shows that we have demonstrated our ability to adhere to all of the profession-wide competencies and to provide an outstanding training.”

The path to accreditation isn’t always smooth. Before her retirement, Kathleen Armstrong, PhD, former director of the USF Health Pediatric Psychology Program, started the application process for accreditation in 2016 with a $25,000 grant to help cover the cost of putting the application together.  When the American Psychological Association released a new application in 2018, Dr. Agazzi and her team were charged with completing the new self-study application.  In May 2019, Dr. Agazzi submitted the application, and on October 2019, the program had its site visit.  In April 2020, the program received official accreditation from the APA.

Dr. Patricia Emmanuel, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics in the Morsani College of Medicine, says the interdisciplinary nature in which we teach our students, interns and residents only enhances the experience and learning environment.

“It has been a goal of ours to integrate more behavioral health and have more psychological services for children,” Dr. Emmanuel said.  “Having an internship like this allows us to broaden the number of children we can offer this service to. Interdisciplinary collaboration has always been part of who we are at USF Health”

Dr. Agazzi and her team expect approximately 50 applicants in the upcoming selection year; these applicants compete for two full-time internship positions.  She and her team will conduct interviews in January, send match results in February, then welcome their second cohort of interns as an accredited program in August 2021.