Show Notes

I know we’re both very much looking forward to this conversation, and we have lots of information and resources to share with you. So why you might be here. You are likely a social worker or a social work student who is interested in becoming a therapist. The problem is that there isn’t always a clear path to getting there as a social worker.

Oftentimes you have to do additional training, and there really isn’t a clear path, and that’s something that we are having more conversations about. And so we thought it was a good time to talk about some practical strategies to start getting some experience to prepare you to pivot into a therapy career.

Before we get into all that, we’ll take a moment to introduce ourselves. So my name is Michelle Bruxer and I’m the founder of MSW Helper. MSW Helper is a platform designed to help students apply to master of social work programs. I started MSW Helper after going through the process of applying to MSW programs myself and realizing how little information and resources that were available that were specific to the field of social work.

So MSW Helper is the only platform that is specifically dedicated to master of social work applications, and we support students through our application support services, and we have a ton of free information and guides and workshops that we run, all designed to help social work students apply to master’s programs with confidence.

The other part of what we do is not only helping people submit their applications to master of social work programs. Part of what we do is not only helping people submit their applications, but also having thoughtful conversations about their career path and whether social work is the right fit for them, and which programs make the most sense to apply to. So I think today’s a really important conversation for those of you specifically who want to become therapists, and really talking about the paths to getting there and how to build strategies to develop your confidence and competence as a future therapist or practitioner.

And I’ll turn it over to Kayla to introduce herself. Hi, everyone. So my name is Kayla Das. I’m a social worker, business coach, podcast host, author. I’m also the owner of the Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory and the American Clinical Supervisor Therapist Directory. I am a Canadian. I’m a registered social worker in Alberta, Ontario, and very recently Newfoundland and Labrador.

So I know, a little bit about those regulatory colleges. In addition, I do a lot of kind of just curiosity into all the different regulatory bodies for social work, and even other professions across Canada and even the States. So we’ll be talking a little bit about kind of the regulatory side.

I’m going to focus more on the Alberta and Ontario section, but I’ll bring in a few other regulatory bodies and things like that as well.

Also, I currently live in Alberta, although I’m moving back to Newfoundland and Labrador very soon. I was born and raised in Newfoundland, and I’m a mom of a two-year-old and a dog mom of two handsome pups, Larry and Marshall, who are the stars of my first book Larry and Marshall’s Newfoundland Adventures.

And you may hear dogs barking along the way. They’re pretty quiet right now, but just in case you do, that’s who they are.

Awesome. Thanks, Kayla. So just a few disclaimers before we get into everything. This presentation is for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered professional advice.

Please be aware that the requirements and processes for becoming a therapist as a social worker can vary depending on where you are located, and each jurisdiction is governed by its own regulatory body and may have specific legislation regarding providing psychotherapy. Since Kayla is registered as a social worker in Alberta, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and I’m registered in Ontario, most of the information shared in this presentation will reflect the knowledge and experience we have within these regions.

We strongly encourage you to seek out information relevant to your own circumstances and jurisdiction, as requirements may differ. For any regulatory specific questions, please consult your own regulatory body for the most up-to-date and accurate advice.

Okay, so with that out of the way, let’s get into really the bulk of what we are chatting about today. So one of the questions– well, actually the only question that we asked you prior to registering for this webinar is we asked you what stage you are at, and there’s almost an equal number of you who are either thinking about applying to graduate school or social work programs or are really starting graduate school.

The other half of you are recent graduates or established social workers in the field. So we did wanna take some time to talk about the different pathways to becoming a therapist because I think that’s a really important part of this conversation and finding a program that works best for you.

Okay. So while a lot of you, probably most of you are social workers or social work students, there are a lot of different educational pathways that would allow you to become a therapist. So we are focusing mostly on the Master of Social Work, and Kayla’s gonna talk a little bit about the Bachelor of Social Work in a few minutes as well.

And there is also a social service worker pathway I know specifically in Ontario. We’re not gonna talk too much about that today. But there are other programs like counseling psychology and marriage and family therapy, art therapy, addictions, and mental health programs. And when I have conversations with people about joining the field of social work, we often have thoughtful conversations about why you are choosing social work as the pathway to becoming a therapist and having honest conversations about other pathways that might make sense to you based on your specific goals.

Now, the one thing I will say is that not all of these degrees are going to lead to the same scope of practice, protected titles, and registration pathways. So while I’m providing a little bit of information about this today, it’s really important that you are doing your own research and understanding what each pathway requires.

So what I wanna talk about specifically today is a Master of Social Work truly the right pathway for you? And I’m gonna compare social work to counseling psychology and other more traditional therapy programs. The thing with social work is that many people with a master of social work degree are therapists, and that’s definitely true.

However, you often do not get a lot of clinical training. And so what happens is people enter the field of social work thinking that, they’re gonna become a therapist, maybe somebody in private practice. But because they aren’t getting a lot of the clinical skills that they need while they’re in school, they sometimes struggle to actually break into the field of therapy.

And sometimes the education isn’t necessarily what you were expecting. So social work is very much rooted in social justice and is a broad degree. So even though you can definitely become a therapist with a social work degree, If you’re very narrow in that goal, I do think it’s worth exploring other programs.

So if we look at counseling psychology, for example, they have a greater emphasis on actually learning therapeutic modalities. So when you look at the courses, you’ll see that you’re actually learning about different methods of therapy. Your internship is probably going to be more clinically focused, and there’s a sometimes a much more clear supervision and registration pathway.

Counseling practices are more traditional, so that’s where you’re gonna get a lot more of that education in actually how to become a therapist, and they are more focused. So this is a great option if you know that you definitely want to be a therapist. What I know is true for a lot of people is you want the option to become a therapist but also have the ability to explore other pathways, and that’s where social work is a really great option.

The one thing I will share is I did a master of social work degree, and I went to more of a generalist program, meaning it was a very broad degree. And I took one course on therapeutic modalities, where each week we learned a different counseling practice. And what I can say is I definitely did not feel prepared after graduating to do any kind of therapeutic role.

And so I had to be very intentional about getting the experience that I needed to become an effective practitioner in a therapeutic setting. So the other half of this conversation, if you have decided that social work is the right fit for you or you’re already on that path, is how to actually make that pivot into therapy and counseling

Okay, so if you’re thinking about whether an MSW is right for you, I really encourage you to start by understanding your why for becoming a social worker. Given the fact that there are multiple pathways to becoming a therapist, why are you choosing social work as that pathway? For a lot of people, it is the fact that social work is more broad, and there’s often a lot of alignment with the theories and central tenets of the profession.

So if you’re someone who is very much interested in the social justice lens and the person and environment and some of the core social work theories, then social work probably is the right path for you. But if not, and you’re very clear about the fact that you want to be a therapist, there might be other programs that are better suited for you.

And the truth is that MSW programs are highly competitive. And so if it’s not aligned, it’s worth exploring other options.

A quick note on choosing social work programs. So there are some social work programs that are clinically focused, meaning they have a greater emphasis on one-on-one individual skills and providing therapy.

If you know that your goal is to become a therapist, these programs can be extremely helpful because it’ll help you bridge that gap and gain a little bit more knowledge in providing therapeutic services. At the same time, and I see a lot of confusion about this, clinical social work master’s programs are not a requirement.

I always say that an MSW is an MSW, and you’re getting the same credential regardless of whether you choose a clinically focused MSW program or a more generalist program. So they’re helpful, but they’re not necessarily required. And if you are wondering about your program choices and the pathway that is best for you, we are going to drop a link in the chat and I encourage you to use that link to schedule a call with me, and we can chat about your unique situation and what makes the most sense for you.

Over the course of this workshop, I have a lot of free resources for you on that link. So I would love for everybody who is here today to take a moment to fill that out and grab all the resources that you need. If you have any questions about applying to master of social work programs, this is another opportunity to connect with me, and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have.



And if you’re not watching this live, the form will be just below in the description.

So I know many people have the question of can you become a therapist with a BSW? And I wanna give a disclaimer that it does depend on your regulatory college’s standards and regulations, but in some jurisdictions, yes, you can. And it’s interesting because I did, of course, my BSW and my MSW, and I didn’t know this until way after I did my MSW that I could, be a therapist with a BSW.

So I know if you’re in the US there’s going to be very different, state regulations than in Canada. And in Canada, every province has its own standards of practice. So while I’m gonna give you some examples here, if you’re in a different province than the ones that I’m, providing here, it’s important to understand or even seek out, can someone with a BSW or in even in the case of a social service worker in Ontario are you eligible to practice psychotherapy and be a therapist?

So for example, in Ontario and Alberta, there’s no distinction between educational degrees for providing in-scope and unrestricted counseling services. Now, I’m gonna go into more of the regulatory components later in this presentation. However just for now, those particular provinces have no distinction.

Also if you’re in Canada the Yukon, for instance, is actually unregulated at this moment, meaning that there is no regulatory college in the Yukon. And when we look at it being unregulated, really anyone could be a social worker in the Yukon, for instance. So it’s important to know, the different provinces and states if you’re in the US and, are they regulated? Are they unregulated? Most are regulated, by the way. And then what are those regulations and do I need an MSW to provide psychotherapy or counseling in that particular area?

And so I know some people might be wondering, “I didn’t know that I could be a therapist with a BSW.” And this is actually a document it’s probably the only thing that I’ve seen the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Services Workers explicitly state that there’s no distinctions.

But last May the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Services Workers had written a letter to insurance companies. Basically what it came out of is that insurance companies were denying services for psychotherapy for BSWs and social services workers. So in this document, the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Services Workers states “that the OCSWSSW makes no distinction for registration between these educational qualifications. Registrants who do not have a master’s of social work degree are allowed to practice the controlled act of psychotherapy” (OCSWSSW, 2025, May 6) of course, in Ontario.

And when we think of employment considerations, ’cause I know I’m gonna go back and forth between, say, private practice and employment because, of course, even when we think of being a therapist, you could be an employee in an agency or in your private practice. When we think of being an employee in an agency, it’s important to know that agencies, even though you may have, say, a social services worker diploma or a BSW and you’re, quote, unquote, “eligible” am able to practice psychotherapy or the act of psychotherapy,” agencies still do set their own expectations on educational requirements.

And what you might see is that in probably more urban centers, because the competition is so high, you’re probably gonna see a higher level requirement. So for instance, I’m just gonna use an example. Here in Edmonton if you were to apply for, say, a mental health therapist position at the Alberta Health Services.

Chances are you’re gonna need your master’s of social work to be even considered. That said, if you’re in a more rural area, the same health, agency may accept someone with a bachelor’s level, and that’s because, of course, the competition is lower they’re still eligible and so forth. So they may set differences that way.

As I said, the competition among applicants still exists depending on the employer’s expectations, requirements, or even I guess maybe even biases in some cases someone with an MSW may still be hired over someone with a BSW even if they are permitted and allowed to practice psychotherapy.

The Ontario College of Social Work and Social Services Workers on private practice. We talked a little bit about the employment side of things. Even though you can have your BSW, MSW, and even social services worker in Ontario, the Ontario College of Social Workers still states that private practice is not an entry to practice competency, meaning, I won’t read all of this to bore you, but when we think of, the requirements and to be in private practice, and again we’re gonna talk about that a little bit later, is that you still need to build those knowledge, skills, and judgments required to practice in a sound, and ethical, and competent manner.

And so that is really important regardless of your degree is that, when you go into private practice, you are on your own at this point, so you don’t have the same access to other professionals in the same capacity.

So now I’m gonna switch a little bit to Alberta. And like I said, every province has different, guidelines, ideas. And even though I’m touching on these two provinces, you can look into your provinces, whether you’re in BC, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and they might have, slight differences.

In Alberta, though, to go into private practice, social workers must be on the general registry. So here in Alberta, we have a provisional registry, a general registry, and a clinical registry. And so provisional is when, you just get registered.

You need supervision. You need so many hours until you can become I guess a fully active Social worker on the general registry.

So according to the ACSW you do need to be on general registry to be able to be in the private practice. Registrants must continually assess their knowledge, skill, and judgment, so very similar to the OCSW, and I do see that very much across most if not all regulatory bodies, is we need to ensure that we have that knowledge, we have those skills, we have the competency and judgment to be able to work with the particular clients that we’re working with the specific interventions that we’re working with.

Even the business knowledge to be able to effectively and ethically conduct business in a specific way. So that would be what the ACSW has highlighted here.

Similarly post-secondary social work education, they state that it does provide the necessary foundation, but it in of itself is insufficient for registrants to be competent in all areas required for private practice (ACSW, 2025, September). And this is why we’re here today. We wanna tell you what some of those things are so that you can start thinking about them, start getting them, to start, again, even whether or not you wanna go into private practice, it’s still important to know as a therapist we do require different competencies and different areas of skills that we may not necessarily need in other areas of practice.

And again, the ACSW says, “Competence is acquired and maintained as part of professional practice and throughout one’s career” (ACSW, 2025, September). And you’ll see that I have consultation and supervision highlighted, because that is super important. A lot of times we think supervision is just to get those hours that we need to get off a provisional registry or something like that, but at the end of the day what really is super important is that we continue to get that feedback, again, whether private practice or as an employee, that we get that feedback from other social workers, from other therapists.

And we’re gonna talk about different supervision models as well.

And we’ll also talk about the restricted interventions later in this webinar.



So let’s talk about how to actually start developing your skills and competencies as a social worker who wants to become a therapist. The important thing to remember is that you do not need to wait to start building your clinical skills.

You can start doing this work whether you are a student or someone who recently graduated, or even someone who is thinking about applying to social work programs. Clinical skills develop over time through exposure and practice, and includes both, learning the therapeutic modalities, which is an important part, but also developing clinical skills which can be gained through a lot of different avenues.

So we’re gonna talk about internships, volunteering, the value of externships how you can leverage your social work roles, professional development and training that you can do, and then clinical supervision. So the first thing I’ll say is if you are a social work student or you are planning to apply to social work programs, one really great strategy is to leverage your internships.

As a social work student, you are likely going to have multiple placement experiences, and even if you don’t choose a clinically focused program, you can try to get a clinically focused placement. And that’s exactly what I did when I was in my master’s degree. Like I mentioned, I did a generalist MSW program, and so I wasn’t really developing skills around learning therapeutic modalities in school, but I did know that I had this internship opportunity.

And so when I met with the person who was responsible for matching me up with a placement, I said I was very interested in clinical social work and would like to have the opportunity to practice that in my master’s placement. And so I got matched with a health team in my local community, and I was providing like CBT focus therapy as part of my placement.

Because I had that placement, I developed a lot of skills, and that allowed me to segue into other clinical roles after I graduated. So just one of the many ways that you can get creative and intentional with using the opportunities that are available to you to develop your skills.

So with clinical social work practicums, you may get the opportunity to get clinical experience, integrate theory with practice, work with different populations, and get supervision from a social worker who is practicing as a therapist.

That was one of the most valuable parts for me in doing a clinical internship, was the level of supervision that I got. And I was meeting with my supervisor each week to talk about the different clients I was supporting, and she was really helping me connect theory to practice and develop plans with each of my clients.

And that’s sometimes the hardest part, is getting into the field in a paid role where you’re expected to have that knowledge. But with an internship, you are getting that support, and it’s expected that you’re not going to know everything. Okay, and then we don’t want to underestimate the value of volunteering.

So any volunteer experience can build skills in communication, crisis response, working with different populations developing skills in professionalism and boundary setting, and then, documentation and case management experience. When I say volunteering, that can really mean anything. And I think any role where you are working with people is going to allow you to develop skills that will be helpful for your later clinical practice.

So they don’t necessarily need to involve formal therapy, and they probably won’t, but you’re still developing the skillsets. And here I have just a few possible positions that often recruit volunteers. So think, crisis lines, distress centers, peer support programs hospitals, victim services, autism programs, group facilitation. All of these are great ways to develop your clinical skills.

What I did personally is I volunteered for a organization for people who have chronic illness, and I developed and ran a support group. And because through that, I was able to expand on the clinical skills that I gained in my internship.

And then I wanna talk a little bit about externships and mentorship. This is something that is less common but can be very valuable. The problem that a lot of social workers face is that, you might be developing some skills through volunteering and different opportunities, but it can be harder to actually get the opportunity to meet with a client face to face and start practicing different therapeutic modalities.

And so one very real strategy is to do an externship with someone who is working in private practice or a clinic. So this can include shadowing sessions, participating in supervision, helping co-facilitate groups, practice your counseling skills, and then of course gaining the documentation skills as well. These are designed to help you build confidence in clinical exposure, and are most often volunteer based and unpaid roles. So think of it like an extension of volunteering.

These are not opportunities that you are likely to find online or apply to, or they generally are not open positions. These are the kinds of things that you would want to really go out and find your own opportunities and pitch yourself to maybe to someone who is working in private practice who might benefit from support with their caseload, and figuring out the ways that you can support them while also developing your clinical skills.

So yeah, this is a great way to get a volunteer experience that would also allow you to get some mentorship from a social worker. You can find these opportunities potentially through cold outreach, but if you have people in your network who you know who are social workers or therapists, that’s a really great place to start, is to leverage the relationships that you already have with people who are working in the field, and finding out if there are ways that you can support them and develop your skills



and of course, we can’t forget the skills that you develop by working in the field as a social worker. I think this is probably the most common path, that, social workers who become therapists, a lot of times they will work in the field for a couple years, develop skills, and then use those skills to eventually move into the field of psychotherapy.

So I think any social work role that you have allows you to develop clinical skills that can be really helpful once you get to that stage. I’m not gonna list everything here, but assessment skills, intervention skills, communication, like active listening, and report building. All of these things are the foundational skills that you need that you will later blend with your more hard clinical therapeutic skills.

And that’s something you wanna be very intentional about when you are working in the field, is thinking through: How is my role preparing me for future clinical practice?

And then of course, we have therapy trainings. So like I’ve mentioned a few times, most master of social work programs don’t necessarily provide the in-depth Education required on specific modalities. Like I said, I took one course on therapeutic modalities, and I think every week we learned about a different one.

So really, I got three hours of training on CBT, three hours of training on motivational interviewing, and every week was like a crash course. And anybody who practices therapeutic modalities knows that you can do hours and hours of training and learning about each of these. So I think taking therapy trainings post-degree really is essential to build on your skills in various therapeutic modalities, and that is true whether you are a social worker or any therapist.

And I think that continuing to learn and developing your skill set is something that every aspiring therapist should be doing. Now, I recognize that some of you may be very early on in your social work career journey, and you might be wondering what I mean when I say therapeutic modalities. A therapeutic modality is an evidence-based treatment that you are using when you are working with clients as a therapist or counselor. So therapists are often trained in a few different therapeutic modalities, and that is what guides the treatment plan and the goals and how they’re approaching their work with clients.

So here I have a list of some therapeutic modalities. You may have seen some of these before and there might be some that are new to you. This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but I just wanted to give you an idea of, the kinds of trainings that you can be looking out for. Most therapists will learn, one practice modality to start, and over time they will build on and layer and bring in different types of therapeutic practices into their work.

And then where do you find these trainings? There’s a lot of different institutes, universities, online platforms, and webinars that are available for you to start learning about therapeutic modalities. The thing that is interesting with at least social work in Ontario in particular, I don’t necessarily want to speak for everybody there isn’t a specific certification for learning different therapeutic modalities.

Say you wanted to practice cognitive behavioral therapy. That’s a very common one. There isn’t a specific credential or level of training or really anything, like any specific training that you need to get to practice it. So there are a lot of different options at a lot of different price points with a lot of different timelines.

So that’s where it gets a little complex with figuring out what trainings you actually need and how do you get there. I actually didn’t do any formal training when I was practicing as a therapist in my internship experience. I learned CBT through a book that I was provided by my supervisor, and she supported me each week in applying it and learning about it. And so it was more of an informal training. So … There are so many different ways to go about it.

And often you can use these trainings towards your registration and ongoing CE requirements. And yeah, I think it’s important, as a practitioner, to always be learning, and you can go so deep with all the different therapeutic models that exist.

I’d like to also add something if you’re okay with it. Can we go back to the slide with the different types of therapeutic modalities? Absolutely. ‘Cause I’ve seen a couple questions come in, and I think it’s really important. One of the questions I saw come in was which ones do I start with?

And it definitely can feel very overwhelming when you have so many different modalities. And as a new practitioner coming out, I will say most people start with probably cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectable behavior therapy. So CBT and DBT. But that said when we think of looking at the different types of modalities, I also like to look at it who is it that we want to work with, because specific modalities, and I do think we need to be trained in more than one, right?

Because a lot of people like to have more of a kind of an eclectic approach, meaning they mix up different modalities and so forth. But specific modalities are gonna be more helpful with certain types of clients than others. For instance Gottman’s method to couples therapy.

It says it in its name. It’s very good for couples therapy. EMDR, so eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Now, while a lot of these modalities can be used over different populations but it’s traditionally used in trauma, right?

It doesn’t mean it’s only used in trauma, but it- that’s where it’s typically seen. So when we think of who we work with that’s usually where we want to start. But I will say when people are just coming out of… and I’m actually gonna use me an example. The very first one I took was cognitive behavioral therapy.

Then I took the acceptance and commitment therapy, which definitely follows my theoretical orientation. And when I say theoretical orientation, talk about the frameworks that we come from. And I really believe in acceptance and commitment therapy. But you’re also gonna take some therapies too that you might say, “You know what?

This doesn’t really jive with who I am.” And that’s okay, and that’s because there are different theoretical orientations and, we all have a desire to learn in different ways. I’m definitely more of a kind of cognitive behavioral type therapist so I gravitate to, more of those types of modalities otherwise.



Someone said, “Can you do these types of trainings with a BSW?” The long answer is yes. The short answer is that sometimes there are certain trainings that will have a specific requirement. So going back to when we talked about employees, they have specific expectations.

Certain trainers will have certain expectations. I can’t speak of one on top of my head ’cause I’m not quite sure. But there are certain institutes that might say you need an MSW before we will train you in this modality.” So that’s just something to consider. But we’ll leave that there ’cause I’m sure there’s lots of questions about that.

We could be here for days. For sure. Yeah, I agree. I think cognitive behavioral therapy is a very popular one to start with, and it’s also the one that I started with. And I think the cool thing about becoming a therapist is that you can really shape the kind of therapist that you want to be, and I think it can be a fun thing to research the different modalities and see the ones that you jive with.

And maybe that’s the direction that you go down and there is a lot of flexibility with that as well.

Okay, and then a few more resources for you. So if you’re listening to all this and wondering, “Okay, where do I even find these trainings?” I have a list of Therapy trainings that I can share with you, as well as a few different resources. One is 119 Social Work Skills for Your Resume and 97 Jobs that You Can Land with a Social Work Degree.

Like I said, I have lots of different resources that I think can be helpful, but I only want to send you the ones that are relevant to you. So if you fill out the form that has been sent in the link a couple of times, that’s gonna go right to my inbox, and I can send you the things that you are looking for.

And of course, if you have any questions, There’s a box to fill that out as well, and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Now, I think the biggest thing that I want you to take away from today’s workshop is that there isn’t one direct path to becoming a therapist. Competence is developed by creating an intentional plan to develop your clinical skills. So there isn’t one specific training. There’s not one specific master’s degree.

There’s not really one path that’s going to get you to your goal of becoming a therapist. And the way that one person does it might look totally different from the way that another person does it. So I think the important thing is to just be intentional about developing the skills that you are looking for and really thinking long-term about the gaps that you have and how you can start developing those skills.

So I just have two examples here. Sally Social Worker, maybe she started with a master of social work degree, and after graduating, she got a job in addictions where she was learning lots of skills from working with people, and then that eventually led to her getting trained in CBT and eventually pivoting into a therapeutic role.

Then we have Frank, who went the family therapy route, which was more of like a traditional counseling psychology program. And so he learned a lot of clinical approaches while he was in school. He went right into an internship and then ended up getting hired on afterward, where he got lots of supervision and support and was really guided into the field of therapy that way.

So really there are so many different pathways to getting there, and you just have to assess where you are at and the skills that you need to develop.

Okay. Now we’re actually moving on more away from kind of the training side and more of now that you’re trained what next? And so when we think building our competencies being a therapist, you will always hear me say, and it’s not just because I’m the owner of the Canadian and American Clinical Supervisor Directories, it’s that I really, truly believe that how we learn is through learning from others.

And so when I say that, it’s training is one part of the puzzle, but then getting that mentorship, that supervision, that consultation is the other part of the puzzle. So while many regulatory bodies require supervision. Supervision or consultation, could be a invaluable part of learning as a therapist as it connects the theories you learn in the trainings into the work that you do in the way that education alone can’t do.

And that’s why our social work diplomas and degrees have practicums, ’cause they want you to have some sort of supervision, some type of mentorship, because the training alone is only part of the puzzle.

And so there are different types of supervisors. So I’m gonna break them down really quickly. So when we think of being an employee in an agency, more often than not, we have an administrative supervisor. So this is an individual who manages your work schedule, your tasks, essentially, for lack of a better word, they’re your boss or superior.

A clinical supervisor, on the other hand, is an experienced practitioner who provides clinical direction, advice, and mentorship to an unlicensed or unregistered or unlicensed or pre-registered or pre-licensed practitioner. So this is when you are a student and you’re beginning to have that supervision, and you’re learning your ropes.

You’re not registered yet. You’re not licensed yet. Similarly, you’re pre-registered, meaning maybe you’re on a provisionary registry, or you’re qualifying of some sort, and you have to get so many hours.

Clinical consultation is an experienced practitioner that you work with who provides clinical advice or suggestions to a registered or licensed practitioner. So a lot of times we know when we need… we’re on the provisional registry or we’re students, that we need to have a clinical supervisor. Sometimes afterwards we don’t invest in that, clinical consultation as much. However, even as fully registered, whether you’re on a general registry, what, whatever we wanna call it, at the end of the day, having that mentorship from a clinical level is important.

And sometimes you might be lucky enough that your administrative supervisor can also provide you some clinical direction. But at the other side of things too, is that your administrative supervisor is really focusing on well, the administrative side of the work, and they may not be able to provide you the same type of clinical direction to help you build your skills clinically. So in this case you might even choose an external supervisor, which we’ll talk about in the next slide.

And then the types of supervisors, like I said, is internal clinical supervisor. So this is a clinical supervisor who works at the same agency as you, and they provide clinical supervision as a part of your role. So like I said, this could still be your administrative supervisor if they have time and willing to provide clinical direction and support on how to help your clients.

It may also be a colleague in some cases. That said more times than not, we wanna ensure that it’s someone who’s more experienced than us, not necessarily someone, who has the same level of education, because that way we are learning and building on those skills.

An external supervisor is a clinical supervisor who works externally from you, likely in their own practice. More times than not, external clinical supervisors are in private practice, and they provide clinical supervision to you on a fee per session basis. This can be really helpful. I’ve talked to so many different social workers that said, even though they might have an internal clinical supervisor or their administrative supervisor is really helpful they actually begin to learn more about them and their skills when they work with an external supervisor, ’cause the purpose of the external supervisor is to help you build your skills.

Whereas sometimes when we’re in the day-to-day grind at work, other types of priorities take over building skills. So not saying that either is better than the other. It’s just understanding that different times in your journey, you may seek out external or you may have internal.

But definitely clinical supervision and/or consultation is really helpful. And a lot of times you might even notice I’m doing this. I call a clinical supervisor who’s actually a clinical consultant. So you often hear people use those word interchangeably. So whether you call it a clinical supervisor or consultant, clinical consultant will likely have paperwork that says they’re a clinical consultant.

But sometimes we often interchange those terms verbally.

And there’s actually different types of clinical supervision you can have too. We often think of that one-to-one clinical supervision where you’re with your clinical supervisor or consultant. But there’s also dyadic, so you and one other person, so two people in the clinical supervision session with a clinical supervisor.



There’s also group, which is a many-to-one clinical supervision with a clinical supervisor or a consultant. And if you’re looking for external supervision, again, depending on the purpose of why you’re seeking it, if you’re seeking I guess a crisis support, for lack of a better word, individual might be really helpful in that point, in that purpose because you are going to be the person that’s the full focus of that session.

That said when we think of group supervision, that’s also really helpful because now you’re beginning to learn from all the other people in the group with you. And from an external standpoint, group supervision does tend to be a little cheaper than individual supervision. So if cost is a factor sometimes group or even dyadic can help with cost.

But that said, you may not get the same type of kind of attention as you would one-to-one. So it really does depend on, the purpose and why you’re seeking that supervision or consultation.

 And I do wanna highlight the supervision directories that I’ve mentioned that I created. So if you’re in Canada, there’s the Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory.

And the Canadian Clinical Supervision Directory has been out for over a year, actually a year and a half now. The American Clinical Supervisor Therapist Directory is really new, so if you’re in the US, there’s only a few supervisors. I only launched it literally two, three weeks ago. So please check it out especially as you’re going through your journey because we’re building up all the time.

But for Canadian social workers, we do have, lots of social workers on the Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory.

And so I mentioned earlier, and we’re gonna go back to Who can provide therapy? So there’s such things as called restricted interventions. So a restricted intervention is an intervention or treatment approach restricted to a specific profession or authorized professional.

And this does depend on your province, your state, and, what the regulatory requirements are and legislation in that specific profession. Now, in Alberta, for instance, there’s called a restricted psychosocial intervention. I’m gonna talk about each of these in a little bit.

And in Ontario, there’s the controlled act of psychotherapy. Like I said, different provinces, different states may have their own wording for this and what that actually looks like and means for professionals and social workers and therapists.

So let’s first start with Alberta. So the words here we use is called restricted psychosocial intervention, and I’m gonna use a direct quote from the ACSW. “A restricted psychosocial interventions are social work services performed to treat a substantial disorder to thought, mood, perception, or memory that grossly impairs judgment, behavior, the capacity to recognize reality, or the ability to meet the ordinary demands of life. This is a specialized and regulated area of social work practice. Only qualified to authorize social workers can perform this service in Alberta.” (ACSW, n.d.)

And so there is a difference between psychosocial intervention and the restricted psychosocial intervention here in Alberta. So I’m gonna break this down because this gets a lot of people confused, and I do recommend if anyone has any questions or concerns about this to reach out to the ACSW because they’re really helpful in identifying what these are. But hopefully, I can break this down for you.

So ” psychosocial intervention is a psychosocial intervention is a social work service focused on psychological, behavioral, and social factors. It aims to improve functioning and quality of life. The service is typically made up of screening, assessment, and intervention like supportive counseling, psychotherapy, referral services, and giving information and assistance. These services could be delivered to individuals, couples, families, and groups.” (ACSW, n.d.). And in Alberta, any social worker can practice the unrestricted version of psychosocial intervention. Now, where this differs is that the “restricted psychosocial intervention is a social work service performed to treat a grossly impairing mental health disorder.” (ACSW, n.d.)

And I think I should have probably highlighted that, but grossly impairing mental health disorder. “These interventions are performed with a substantial expectation of treating a substantial disorder of thought, mood, perception, orientation memory that grossly impairs judgment, behavior, capacity to recognize reality, and ability to meet the ordinary demands of life.” (ACSW, n.d.).

so what I often get here is often people ask me, “So really what’s the difference? What’s the intervention?” Here in Alberta, it’s not really about what you do, it’s about who you’re providing the psychosocial intervention for and what’s its purpose. So going back to the grossly impaired mental disorder.

If you’re looking to treat an individual and they have a grossly impaired mental disorder, then that would categorize under the unrestricted. I hope that makes sense

And so in Alberta, social workers who want to provide psychosocial intervention need individual authorization from the college, so from the ACSW, or to be under the supervision of someone authorized. So you need to get the restricted psychosocial authorization if you’re providing the restricted version of the psychosocial intervention.

But social workers with the competency to do so again, to provide psychotherapy or counseling are usually permitted to provide unrestricted psychosocial intervention or provide restricted psychosocial intervention under the supervision of someone qualified. So what that means is, and I’ll just give myself as an example I have never been authorized under the restricted psychosocial intervention authorization, but I’ve also never have worked with an individual with a grossly impaired mental disorder in accordance to this term.

In my private practice, I worked with workplace stress and burnout. So I was still able to provide like support, counseling things like that. But it was more of who my clients were versus what I provided and of course, why I was providing it was important.

So according to the ACSW you do need a minimum of a bachelor’s of social worker, but usually of a master’s of social worker to get the authorization of a restricted psychosocial intervention. So anyone with a diploma program, at least according to what’s on their website, states that you wouldn’t be able to get the restricted psychosocial intervention.

But again, I’m sure there’s exceptions out there that I’m unaware of, but this is what the ACSW states, and you must be registered on the general registry. So if you’re still provisional, even whether regardless of a BSW or an MSW you still need to be on the general registry before you can start the application process for restricted psychosocial intervention authorization.

Now for Ontario, this one’s a lot easier, by the way. So the controlled act of psychotherapy, so this is according to the government of Ontario, it’s to treat by means of psychotherapy technique, so we’re talking about the what now, “delivered through a therapeutic relationship, an individual’s serious disorder of thought, cognition, mood, emotional regulation, perception, or memory that may seriously impair the individual’s judgment, insight, behavior, communication, or social functioning” (Government of Ontario, 2007).

And so the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Services Workers, as I stated before, makes no distinction regardless of your credentials whether you have a social services worker diploma, a BSW or an MSW, to practice psychotherapy. In other words- Anyone who’s registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers are by regulation permitted to practice the controlled act of psychotherapy, provided they have developed the competencies to do and again, you need to be registered with the Ontario College of Social Worker and Social Services Workers for this to be true.

And I won’t spend too much time on this, but going back to what Michelle mentioned about the different regulatory pathways, also different people in Ontario can practice psychotherapy. So obviously individuals with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Services Workers, College of Nurses of Ontario the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.

There’s different requirements though under each one, which again is unrelated to today, but these are also different regulatory bodies that are permitted to provide the controlled act of psychotherapy.

So let’s talk about becoming a private practice therapist. So this is where I thrive. This is my area of specialty. So really first of all, it’s important to understand your regulatory body’s guidelines regarding private practice. Every regulatory body, you might hear me say this over and over, but they have their own guidelines.

They might have their own expectations. They might have their own requirements with respect to what private practice or who can be in private practice. So first of all, make sure that you understand those regulatory guidelines, standards, and ethics, but then also define what a private practice looks like for you.

As I mentioned, I’m the podcast host of the Designer Practice podcast, and I really strongly believe of designing a practice that fits your life, and that’s really what my whole podcast is about, is different ways to set up your private practice. Because at the end of the day, the modalities you choose, the business methods you put in place, the services you provide, and even the populations you serve are gonna be very different social worker to social worker.



We all have our own paths, our own desires, our own everything on what we want to see for our careers. So with that, define what that looks like for you. If going into a therapy practice, ensure that you have the theoretical orientation accompanied by the theoretical modalities you want to work in.

So we already talked about those, but really focus on, okay, now that you know who you want to work with, what are the modalities that kind of fit in with that? And of course, ex- exploring and experimenting on what type of therapist you are. Like I said, I’m a very cognitive behavioral type therapist, and I gravitate towards those types of modalities.

But there are more experiential type therapists. Of course, there’s family and couples and things like that. So at the end of the day– or there’s psychoanalytic and psychodynamic. So we want to really identify you know- Kind of experience and experiment with those types. And then, like I said, choose that niche, that population that you wanna start with.

It’s funny, I find when people go into private practice, they start really big, almost like a generalist and then hone in. But if we think about even competencies, is more times than not, we’re not … I know I wasn’t. I’m just gonna use me as an example. I was not competent to work with all of these people at the very beginning ’cause I didn’t have the modalities, I didn’t have the skills, I didn’t have all of the things that I needed to be successful with all of these types of clients.

So it’s better to choose a small population, and then expand out, because as you expand out, you can start, building on the skills you’ve already learned. And that helps you continue to feel confident and be competent in the work you, you do.

The other side of it is I found, it was a very short period of time, I did I work with everyone, but what I found really challenging was trying to keep up with what worksheet, what modality. I felt like even though I was working, maybe with 20 to 25 clients a week, I spent 40 to 50 hours a week trying to find new resources, because work- every single client needed a different modality or needed a different approach.

Whereas when I finally said, I’m gonna work with workplace stress and burnout, I was able to build on my skills and I was able to really specialize in that area. And I didn’t feel like I was as chaotic if that makes sense. But yeah, I found that was really helpful, so really finding your niche and starting there.

So I’m gonna debunk some private practice myths because sometimes when we think of private practice, there’s a lot of myths going out around, and we wanna break those down.

So myth one: You need 20-plus years of experience. While some regulatory bodies state that private practice is not an entry-level position the … And some might even give guidance of a a number, like five years of social work experience, you do not need 20 years of experience to go into private practice.

And the reason I say this is ’cause I even know, again, when I did my BSW, people always said to me, “Oh, you need to be in practice for 20 years before you can go into this route.” If you focus on building the competencies, the skills, the modalities, and then of course getting the types of trainings you want- Within, five, six years you could go into private practice.

That said, there’s some regulatory bodies that may not even say entry-level position. And I’ve seen many private practice owners go in right from their MSW, and it might also be because they’ve had experience as a BSW before they went in to do their MSW. So I think it’s really important to note that there’s not kind of one path, but at the end of the day, you do not need 20 years experience to go into practice.

Now, the one caveat here, though, is therapy skills are very different than business skills, and I often get people say that, “When I feel confident in building a business, I’ll start building a business.” And I’m like you’re never gonna feel confident in that until you start doing it or start building the skills and trainings and mentorship in that area.”

And we’re gonna talk about that later, too.

Myth number two: You need to ditch your full-time job to go into private practice. This is absolutely not true. There are so many social workers and therapists out there that go into a part-time private practice on the evenings or the weekends, things like that. So I think it’s really important to know that, if you don’t want to leave your full-time job, you do not have to.

Myth number two: Insurance companies do not cover social workers. Many insurance providers, at least here in Canada, and I know the US has its own kinda setup when it comes to in-network and out-of-network type of insurance pr- companies. But here in Canada most insurance providers do cover services provided by RSW’s.

However, coverage varies by provider and plan. Some plans only cover psychologists, for instance. Some cover, all types of mental health services. So it’s really important to kinda know. Also, there has been some providers which going back to that letter that I showed you earlier on with, from the OCSW SSW some might even turn down individuals who have a BSW or a social services worker even though they’re eligible to practice psychotherapy.

So that is something that it appears, at least from that letter, that there’s some advocacy on. But it’s really important to know that every plan is different. So it’s really hard for us as social workers to really keep up with every plan. At the end of the day, it’s important for the person that we work with to ensure that our services are covered.



Myth number four, you can only offer one-to-one therapy services in private practice. Absolutely not. Social workers in private practice can diversify through services such as workshops, trainings, group therapy, consulting, supervision. Of course, supervision would be, as you build up some of those skills.

Selling digital templates, blogging, podcasting, writing books. In fact, diversifying income can help with financial impact of the ebbs and flows of therapy service provision. Now, I wanna give a caveat, though. I’m listing these things off, but it’s important to really understand your standards of practice and ethical guidelines because, there are such things as conflict of interest and things like that.

So we wanna make sure that everything that we’re doing it ethically. But at the end of the day providing these other types of services opens up services in ways that maybe some people may not be able to access or want to access therapy services. But if we have these other type of tools or methods that we provide people can access it differently

And I’m actually the author of The Passive Practice, which is the passive income roadmap for maximizing schedule flexibility, time freedom, and private practice profitability.

It’s in Amazon worldwide.

And I actually have implemented many passive income streams into my own practice. I kinda lost count, but I think I’m at 12 right now. But that said, it might be that I have 10 and I’m working on a bunch of others. But the point is I do implement a lot of passive income into my practice.

And myth five: you have to do it all alone. And this is not true. There are social media communities, supervision groups, business coaching, and networks of other therapists and private practice owners designed for guidance. So you could either partner with someone else when you’re starting a private practice, you could hire in your practice, whether it’s students, employees, independent contractors.

There’s so many different ways you can do it, and maybe you wanna go it on your own, and that’s okay, too. You can. But you don’t have to. There’s so many resources, even like this webinar today, right? We purposely put this out because we want people to know this information.

And so the, to sum it up, ’cause I know one of the big kind of things is the competencies to become a therapist. We talked about them, but we didn’t break it down into a really nice kind of graph. So when we ensure that our level of education is permitted to practice as a therapist in our jurisdiction, so look whether you have a BSW, an MSW, but you’re permitted according to your licensing requirements or your registration requirements.

You also need to be registered and licensed, of course, with your regulatory body that can practice psychotherapy. You wanna take training, therapeutic modalities that fit, your theoretical orientation, build your skills in that type of therapy or approach, and then receive ongoing clinical supervision or consultation.

This is probably the one area where I see people, spend less time in, but I think training and clinical supervision and consultation are equally as important. So if you’re spending so much time with your training, you should be probably spending, just as much time with, consultation or support because that is how you build what you learn and put it into practice.

And I touched on it earlier, but in private practice, you do need to build the competencies of business, marketing, and administrative knowledge.

While therapy is a big part of running a therapy practice, the business, marketing, and administrative piece is equally as important in the business realm. So it is an additional competency, and it’s an additional skill that you need to focus on if you want to go into that area.

Other considerations, and I would say that this consideration is whether you’re an employee or in private practice, is having malpractice insurance and liability insurance.

Even though many of us, when we’re social workers, and I’m gonna say I was the same way, that, when we go into an agency where we’re employees, we’re like, “Oh, I’m gonna be covered under my employer’s insurance.” That might be true in some realms, but if you have a complaint against you from your regulatory college, chances are your employer is not gonna foot the bill of your legal services to, navigate that complaint.

So I honestly believe, this is my opinion, that we should all have malpractice and liability insurance, regardless if you’re employee or in private practice.

Knowledge of jurisdictional legislation and private i.e. privacy laws. So this is something we didn’t touch on here, but we’re talking a lot about the regulation of being regulated with a regulatory body, but legislation by the government. For instance, privacy laws. In Canada, the Canadian privacy law is PIPEDA. Most provinces have their own individual privacy legislations. This is important, definitely important if you’re in private practice. But also, if you’re an employee, it’s important to, to know what these mean.

We know what confidentiality means, but that’s more of what’s in our standards of practice. But there is a difference between privacy and confidentiality, somewhat nuanced. There’s a lot of similarities, too.

But really understanding you know your legislation of your practice. And then follow the codes of ethics and standards of practice in your province and/or state.

And then be open to lifelong learning through formal and informal practices, whether it’s therapy trainings, social work trainings, clinical supervision, business, marketing, administration, copywriting, all these different things.

Whatever, floats your boat. But be open to lifelong learning because e- when we talk about competencies, competencies just don’t end. You don’t just say oh, I’m competent now” to, “I’m fully competent in everything that I do.” Honestly, I’m still learning every single day in new approaches, new modalities. Even the modalities I’ve been trained in forever, I’m like, “Oh, this is a new a cool new approach to it,” and so forth. So just be open to lifelong learning

and Michelle and I both have our own individual Facebook groups. They’re free to join. We recommend that join whichever one or both if you feel that they’re both relevant to you.

I did see a question I’m gonna answer, is how can you tell if a clinical supervisor is competent?



And we kinda need to do our own research on that as practitioners seeking out clinical supervisors, ’cause when we use the word competent, it also depends on the skills you wanna develop as a social worker. The clearer you are on what those skills are you’re wanting to build upon, then you can find a supervisor, with that specific skill.

Let me just give an example. Our directories can actually let you filter through, say, keywords or modalities and things like that. So let’s say you really wanted to focus on CBT as a therapeutic modality, for instance. You can type in CBT, and only those who list CBT as a modality that they’re trained in will pop up.

‘Cause of course, if you wanna learn CBT, but you find a supervisor that has no training in CBT- they’re probably not gonna be helpful for you, right? So this is where you can ask those questions.

So the clearer you are on why you wanna seek supervision or the skills you wanna build upon that can be really helpful.

Also competency is like versatile. It’s again, it’s are you looking for a specific profession, right? You might be looking for a social worker. Let’s say you’re on the provisional registry here in Alberta, and you’re looking towards getting your hours. Chances are you’re gonna look for a social worker for that purpose.

However, if you’re looking for someone who’s trained in EMDR because you really wanna build upon your skills on that, maybe you’ve taken an EMDRIA training or something like that, and you’re looking for a EMDRIA consultant or an EMDR consultant, maybe you don’t find someone who has a social work profession. But you might find someone who’s a psychologist or a registered psychotherapist or a counselor. That might even be, more helpful to you because you’re building on that skill versus the profession. So at the end of the day I guess going back to the question of how do you know if your supervisor is competent is first it’s to identify what your goals are and what your what the purpose of seeking supervision.

When I say purpose, you don’t always have to have a clear goal. You and your supervisor can identify what those goals are. But I would also encourage you to have a free consult or connect with them and talk to them and get a feel.

Just like therapists we’re gonna have some therapists that we feel more comfortable with, and we’re gonna find some that, may not jive with us, and that’s just a natural part of life. And so really seeking out your clinical supervisor and asking those questions. I hope that answers that question.

Okay, awesome. That pretty much brings us to the end of the information that we have for you today

thank you so much for all your for your time, and we hope that you are walking away feeling a little bit more informed about the path to pivoting into therapy and counseling as a social worker, and I hope that your biggest takeaway is that there really isn’t one path to get there. And that is something that really leaves a lot of freedom for you to explore therapeutic modalities that you’re interested in or take different routes that would really allow you to specialize in the things that you are the most passionate about.

Thank you so much for your time, and we hope that you enjoy the rest of your day.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by Denis Pavlov Music from Pixabay

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References

ACSW. (2025, September). Private Practice Guidance. Retrieved from https://acsw.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DOC_ProfessionalPracticeGuideline_PrivatePractice_20251006.pdf

ACSW. (n.d.). Restricted Psychosocial Intervention. Retrieved from https://acsw.ab.ca/rapi-information/

Government of Ontario. (2007) Psychotherapy Act. Retrieved from, https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/07p10

OCSWSSW. (2025, May 8). Letter to Insurance Company. Retrieved from https://www.ocswssw.org/wp-content/uploads/OCSWSSW-Letter-to-Insurance-Providers-May-8-2025.pdf

OCSWSSW. (n.d.1). Private Practice. Retrieved from https://www.ocswssw.org/registrants/private-practice/

OCSWSSW. (n.d.2) Psychotherapy. Retrieved from https://www.ocswssw.org/registrants/psychotherapy/

Yukon Government. (2024, December, 24). Joint statement from Minister McPhee and Chief Coroner Heather Jones on efforts to regulate social work. Retrieved from https://yukon.ca/en/news/joint-statement-from-minister-mcphee-and-chief-coroner-heather-jones-on-efforts-to-regulate-social-work