Marcela Ocampo Licensed Psychologist, PhD, ABPP Albuquerque, 87106, United States [email protected] · (505) 555-1192
16 September 2026
Dr. Neve Rutherford Clinical Director Cottonwood Creek Pediatric Psychology Albuquerque, United States
Application for Staff Child Psychologist, Cottonwood Creek Pediatric Psychology
Dear Dr. Rutherford,
I am applying for the staff child psychologist post at Cottonwood Creek Pediatric Psychology. I am licensed in New Mexico, license #NM-PSY-4472, and my battery covers ages 2 through 18: the WPPSI-IV and WISC-V for cognitive work, the WIAT-4 for achievement, the ADOS-2 from the Toddler Module through Module 3, and the Vineland-3, BASC-3 and Conners 4 for adaptive and behavioral measures.
For the past five years I have worked in an outpatient children's behavioral health center, completing roughly 90 comprehensive evaluations a year alongside a weekly therapy caseload of 18. The piece I would most want to bring to Cottonwood Creek is the assessment pathway work. We rebuilt intake so that the battery is selected from the referral question rather than assembled at the first appointment, which cut the median wait from referral to evaluation from 21 weeks to 9 and raised the share of reports delivered inside 14 days from 54 percent to 91 percent.
I noticed that your service takes early intervention referrals from the pediatric practices on the west side and that your bilingual waitlist is posted separately. I assess and deliver caregiver feedback in Spanish, and I built the bilingual pathway at my current center, which now covers 38 percent of our evaluation volume. I would also be glad to carry postdoctoral supervision; I currently supervise two fellows with direct observation of administration and scoring.
My New Mexico license is active through 2028 and I hold board certification in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. I can give six weeks' notice. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Marcela Ocampo, PhD, ABPP
Summary
A child psychologist cover letter tells a clinical director which referrals on their waitlist you can take, which instruments you administer and for which ages, and where you stand on licensure. This guide gives you a full adaptable letter, the openings that work, and how the letter changes between a school contract, a clinic, a hospital and a forensic post.
Child Psychologist cover letter examples by experience level
A child psychologist cover letter is a one-page letter telling a clinical director which referrals on their waitlist you can take, which instruments you administer and for which ages, and where you stand on licensure.
That framing works because it matches how the job is staffed. A children's clinic, a district and a hospital all run a queue, and the person reading your letter is holding it, trying to work out how much of it you can absorb.
Guide to a child psychologist cover letter
This guide and the corresponding child psychologist cover letter example will cover:
- How to structure the letter, paragraph by paragraph
- Why the instruments and age bands belong in the first paragraph
- What counts as evidence when you cannot describe a single child
- How the letter changes between a school contract, a clinic, a hospital and a forensic post
How to write a child psychologist cover letter
| Paragraph | Its job | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | The post, your license status, the ages and instruments you cover | 2 to 3 sentences |
| Evidence | Volume, battery breadth, one measured change over a stated period | 4 to 5 sentences |
| Fit | Something specific about their service, and what you would take on | 3 to 4 sentences |
| Close | License, availability, thank you | 2 sentences |
Put the age band in the first paragraph
A clinical director reading applications has a waitlist with an age distribution, and the referrals that sit longest are almost always the youngest, because fewer clinicians are trained to assess them.
So say the range: "I assess from 16 days through 21 years, using the Bayley-4 at the youngest end and the WISC-V, WIAT-4 and ADOS-2 through school age and adolescence." That answers the question the reader has, and separates you from applicants who write "experienced in psychological testing".
Then name the ADOS-2 modules. Western Psychological Services publishes a Toddler Module "for children between 12 and 30 months of age who do not consistently use phrase speech" and four further modules by language level. A clinician who can run the Toddler Module clears part of the queue most applicants cannot touch.
A child psychologist cover letter example you can adapt
Dear Dr. Rutherford,
I am applying for the staff child psychologist post at Cottonwood Creek Pediatric Psychology. I am licensed in New Mexico, license #NM-PSY-4472, and my battery covers ages 2 through 18: the WPPSI-IV and WISC-V for cognitive work, the WIAT-4 for achievement, the ADOS-2 from the Toddler Module through Module 3, and the Vineland-3, BASC-3 and Conners 4 for adaptive and behavioral measures.
For the past five years I have worked in an outpatient children's behavioral health center, completing roughly 90 comprehensive evaluations a year alongside a weekly therapy caseload of 18. The piece I would most want to bring to Cottonwood Creek is the assessment pathway work. We rebuilt intake so that the battery is selected from the referral question rather than assembled at the first appointment, which cut the median wait from referral to evaluation from 21 weeks to 9 and raised the share of reports delivered inside 14 days from 54 percent to 91 percent.
I noticed that your service takes early intervention referrals from the pediatric practices on the west side and that your bilingual waitlist is posted separately. I assess and deliver caregiver feedback in Spanish, and I built the bilingual pathway at my current center, which now covers 38 percent of our evaluation volume. I would also be glad to carry postdoctoral supervision; I currently supervise two fellows with direct observation of administration and scoring.
My New Mexico license is active through 2028 and I hold board certification in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. I can give six weeks' notice. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Marcela Ocampo, PhD, ABPP
Openings that work
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
| I have always loved working with children and families | I am licensed in New Mexico and my battery covers ages 2 through 18 |
| I am writing to express my interest in your psychologist position | I am applying for the staff child psychologist post, and I run the ADOS-2 from the Toddler Module through Module 3 |
What counts as evidence when you cannot describe a child
Nothing in the letter should be traceable to a family. Everything that persuades a clinical director is aggregate anyway.
| Kind of evidence | What it looks like in a sentence |
|---|---|
| Volume | Roughly 90 comprehensive evaluations a year, ages 2 to 18 |
| Age reach | Assess from 16 days through 21 years, Bayley-4 at the youngest end |
| Access | Median referral-to-evaluation wait cut from 21 weeks to 9 |
| Turnaround | Reports delivered inside 14 days rose from 54 percent to 91 percent |
Two published wage lines, and you are probably read against both
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes no child psychologist line. In its Occupational Outlook Handbook, the nearest figures are clinical and counseling psychologists at a median of $100,580 and school psychologists at $95,990, both May 2025, against $99,110 for psychologists overall (BLS, 2025 to 2035 projections, last modified 27 August 2026).
The occupation held 209,400 jobs in 2025, is projected to grow 6 percent through 2035 and to produce about 11,300 openings a year, with 25 percent of jobs in ambulatory healthcare services and 24 percent in elementary and secondary schools (BLS, May 2025).
That split is the practical point. A clinic reader and a district reader want different sentences from you, and the same letter will not persuade both. Decide which one you are writing to before the first paragraph.
How the letter changes by setting
For a clinic, lead with evaluation volume, battery breadth and turnaround. For a district or contract post, lead with eligibility experience and say that you write recommendations a team can implement. For a hospital, lead with consultation: brief assessment, work alongside medical teams, pace. For a forensic post, lead with report defensibility, who the client is, and the limits of confidentiality you set at the outset. Read the service's pages first and name one real thing.
Do not describe a child, a family or a presentation in any way that could identify them, however anonymized it feels. Do not claim an instrument you have administered twice under supervision. Do not use the title psychologist in a jurisdiction where you are not licensed to use it. Do not open with a philosophy of care, and do not leave your licensure status to be inferred.
What to write before you are licensed
Most applicants for child psychology posts are somewhere in the licensure sequence, and vagueness there kills an otherwise strong letter.
Write the jurisdiction, hours completed against the requirement, examination status and the date you expect licensure. The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards administers the EPPP on behalf of its 66 jurisdictional boards in the US and Canada, all of which require a passing score on Part 1 before licensure, so "EPPP Part 1 passed, 2,400 of 3,000 supervised hours completed, licensure expected March 2027" is a sentence a hiring manager can plan around.
Say that both your doctoral program and your internship were APA-accredited, and whether the internship had a child or adolescent track. Internship is allocated through the APPIC Match, which in its combined 2026 results published on 25 March 2026 registered 4,662 applicants and matched 3,919, an 87 percent match rate.
Length, format and sending it
One page, four paragraphs, 250 to 400 words. PDF unless a hospital portal says otherwise, named for yourself and the post: marcela-ocampo-child-psychologist-cover-letter.pdf
Address a named person. Clinical and training directors are public on almost every service's site, and "Dear Hiring Committee" on a letter that is otherwise specific reads as a letter sent to twelve services.
Use the same figures as your resume so the two agree. Our child psychologist resume example uses the numbers here, and the free ATS checker will tell you whether a health system portal can read the file.
Key takeaways
- Put your license status and your age range in the first paragraph.
- Name the instruments, and which ADOS-2 modules you administer.
- Use aggregate volume, wait times and turnaround as your evidence.
- Match the letter to the setting: clinic, district, hospital or forensic.
- Name one real thing about their service, taken from their own pages.
- If you are not yet licensed, give hours, examination status and a date.
Write your child psychologist cover letter in 10 minutes with our AI cover letter builder.
Child psychologist cover letter questions, answered
How long should a child psychologist cover letter be?
One page, four paragraphs, 250 to 400 words. Detail that does not fit belongs on the resume as an assessment battery block with age ranges, which is a better place for it.
Should I list instruments in the cover letter as well as the resume?
Yes, but only the headline ones. Three or four named instruments and an age range in the first paragraph tells a clinical director what you can take. The full battery with publisher age ranges belongs in a table on the resume.
How do I write about outcomes without describing a child?
Use service-level measures: evaluations a year, median wait from referral to evaluation, report turnaround, caseload size, attendance or dropout rates, and trainees supervised. Those describe your practice rather than any individual, and they are the numbers a director is managing.
Does board certification belong in the letter?
Yes, in the closing paragraph with your license. The American Board of Professional Psychology certifies in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and requires an APA- or CPA-accredited doctorate, an internship at least fifty percent focused on child and adolescent populations, doctoral-level licensure and three years of post-degree experience. A short line that carries a lot.
How do I write to a service I have never worked with?
Read their site for ten minutes first: the clinicians, the referral pathways, the age ranges they accept, and whether they run a bilingual or early intervention pathway. One accurate sentence about what they are doing beats a paragraph of admiration, and it cannot be copied into the next letter.