AMI1989

Hello I'm a first time poster and I was hoping to get some advice and recommendations. I graduated in 2012 with a BA in Psychology and have taken all the usual undergrad courses (stats, experimental, abnormal, etc). My psychology GPA was okay, about a 3.7 or 3.8 I believe, but my cumulative undergrad GPA wasn't wonderful (3.45, thanks to calculus and some unrelated courses I sucked at!) During my undergrad degree, I held two internships; one on an inpatient psychiatric unit and another in a therapeutic nursery for children on the autism spectrum. Both internships were short term, about 6-8 months each. After graduation, I worked as a "direct care counselor" in a non-profit, working with mentally ill clients in the community. We ran a supervised living program, and I assisted them with medication & symptom management, finding housing, jobs, etc. After that, I moved to the UK for a period of a few years for personal reasons, and found a job working as a psychology assistant on an acute inpatient unit. I worked directly under a Clinical Psychologist and at first shadowed him during assessments and clinics, but I took on my own workload as well. I managed a very small (2-3) client caseload, providing "light" therapy - basically more like 1:1 sessions rather than anything like CBT, as I'm not properly trained or qualified. I did also assist with some small research matters (creating care pathways for specific client presentations based on current research) but nothing major. I was also sent away for basic training in DBT skills which was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot about diagnosis and treatment, and was able to learn/use several different assessment tools. I'm now back in the US and looking to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology. I would have gone in the UK as the course is much shorter, but the fees for being an international student were more than I could handle at the time. Looking into PhD programs, I see that a huge problem with my application would be a significant lack of research experience. I'm thinking if I applied now, I'd surely be rejected. I'm in the US and back to working with one of the community agencies, doing a similar job to what I was doing previously (supervised living counseling) which is enjoyable, but after having a taste for working with clinical psychologists, I miss it. I work full time, so I guess my question is, how can I get research experience when I'm no longer a student? I'd like to try and jazz up my application as much as possible because I know how competitive it will be, and I think it will better prepare me as well. I'm just not sure what to do really when you have a full time M-F job? Are there part time/volunteer research opportunities for non-students? Any advice would be appreciated Thank you!