Show Notes

Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

If you ever searched for a clinical supervisor, you may have had mixed emotions of excitement and stress. Although it can be exciting to find someone who can help you grow as a practitioner. It can also be challenging to find a clinical supervisor who is the right fit.

Before we dive into today’s topic, I want to share a personal story.

When I first started my private practice, I knew that I needed a clinical supervisor. And the search was so exciting because I was looking forward to having a mentor to help support my growth through the transition and beyond.

But then I realized that finding a clinical supervisor wasn’t easy. I spent hours and hours searching for a clinical supervisor, and then I finally found a potential match. So, I reached out to that person and started working with them immediately.

Now I want to premise that this supervisor was compassionate, knowledgeable, and supportive. All the traits that you would want in a clinical supervisor. She shared concepts, helped me manage specific cases, even provided some helpful business advice.

But I left each and every session feeling defeated. upset, and I questioned whether I should even be a social worker anymore. Because honestly, I had no idea what was happening in these clinical supervision sessions.

Looking back, I was so desperately looking for a clinical supervisor, I ignored all of the signs that we were just not a good fit.

Then, one day my clinical supervisor called the elephant out in the room. That we weren’t a great match. To this day, I appreciate her so much for that. Because I probably would have continued to see her, regardless of how the sessions made me feel.

So afterwards, a colleague gave me a referral to someone who ended up being the perfect fit. Everything changed. I left each session feeling energized, excited, and empowered. I felt I actually knew what was happening in each session. It was a huge difference because at the end of the day, it was a supervisory fit.

Truly, the power of fit cannot be understated.

So you might be thinking to yourself, what does this story have to do with today’s episode?

Well, if I look back, the difference between my experience with each clinical supervisor was rooted in six key areas. And these six key areas are based on my needs and how they aligned with the clinical supervisors practice and experience.

So, in today’s episode, I’m going to share with you six key areas to look for when choosing a clinical supervisor so that you find the right fit the first time.

1. Educational Background

First of all, when choosing a clinical supervisor, identify the clinical supervisor’s educational background. Although it’s not always necessary for therapists to be supervised by someone who has the exact same educational background as them, it’s important to ensure that there is an alignment in practice.

Also, it’s important to know your regulatory body’s expectations around receiving clinical supervision, as different regulatory bodies have different requirements regarding who can be considered a clinical supervisor.

Some regulatory bodies allow their members to choose clinical supervisors with minimal restrictions, while others have stricter guidelines about who can be considered an appropriate clinical supervisor. So, when choosing a clinical supervisor, determine your regulatory body’s position about cross-profession supervision, so that you know you’re receiving the appropriate clinical supervision as determined by your regulatory body.

2. Professional Designations

In addition to educational background, what are your clinical supervisor’s professional designations? Professional designations are important when you’re looking for a clinical supervisor. Professional designations might include regulatory designations or advanced training designations. For example, registered social workers in Alberta or BC working towards the Registered Clinical Social Worker or RCSW designation might choose a clinical supervisor with the RCSW title.

Also, therapists working towards the EMDR certification might need to find someone with an EMDR consultant designation to work towards their EMDR consultant hours. If you’re working towards advanced training or designations, you may need a clinical supervisor with these specialized credentials.

3. Practice Experience 

Next, determine the clinical supervisor’s areas of practice. Now, practice experience isn’t just about the number of years a clinical supervisor has been in the field, but instead who they’ve worked with while in practice, because a good fit would be a clinical supervisor who has worked with similar clients as yourself.

For example, a therapist working with children would benefit much more from a clinical supervisor who has experience, expertise, and skills working with and navigating through the clinical and ethical situations that may arise when working with children and their parents.

Because having someone who has been through similar situations as you and who knows your ideal client well is going to provide more practical, relevant, and realistic strategies or guidance than someone who hasn’t.

4. Theoretical Orientation

Next, learn your clinical supervisor’s theoretical orientation. In other words, determine which frameworks the clinical supervisor uses to inform their therapy interventions. And more importantly, determine if the clinical supervisor’s theoretical orientation aligns with your own. As your clinical supervisor’s advice is based on their theoretical orientation, an alignment between theoretical orientations is essential for promoting the best client care.

If I look back to my experience that I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast episode, I think the two main factors that majorly impacted my experience was a mismatch in theoretical orientation, and we also didn’t serve the same type of clients. So, our practice lens and our experience were completely different. So, it also makes sense that we weren’t a good fit, and that I really didn’t know what was happening in each session, because it was from a different lens than how I practice.

5. Style of Supervision & Accessibility

Finally, what is the clinical supervisor’s style of supervision, and are they accessible?

When I think of the style of supervision, I think of the methods the clinical supervisor uses to deliver supervision sessions, the supervision structure, the supervision requirements, their personality, and are they accessible when you need them?

You may be able to gather some of this information on directories, websites, or other ways that the clinical supervisor advertises their services. However, determining a clinical supervisor’s style of supervision often requires a meet and greet to determine best fit, especially when we think of things like personality.

Some clinical supervisors offer a free consultation, which I suggest using, if available, so that you can have a better idea if their style works for you.

Also, accessibility is important in order to maintain the supervisor-supervisee relationship. If accessibility is a barrier, then following through with clinical supervision can become super challenging. As accessibility differs person-to-person, you might want to consider what your needs are and search for a therapist who ticks most of those boxes.

Accessibility could include when they provide clinical supervision, such as their hours of operation, methods of clinical supervision, distance from your home, physical aspects of their office space, as well as their policy around impromptu sessions for emergent client situations, if that’s important to you.

Conclusion

Now, let’s recap.

The five things to look for when choosing a clinical supervisor are,

1. Educational background,

2. Professional designations,

3.Their practice experience,

4. Their theoretical orientation,

5. Style of supervision and accessibility.

And specifically, how all of these align with you, your practice, and your professional goals.

Now, if your next question is, where do I find a clinical supervisor?

I’ve also got you covered.

I’m so excited to announce that we’re in the process of launching a brand new directory that’s specifically for therapists to connect with Canadian clinical supervisors.

By the time this episode goes live, the directory will either be at the tail end of its development, so it may not be up just yet, or it will be just going live and may have a few clinical supervisor listings on there.

But I wanted to share it here on the podcast anyway, so that you know about it, and so that you can have it saved or bookmarked for when you’re ready to find your next clinical supervisor.

Also, if you’re a clinical supervisor, I encourage you to check out our site because we are having a limited time promotion once we go live for our founding members who want to list on our site.

So go ahead and check us out at canadianclinicalsupervision.ca

That’s canadianclinicalsupervision.ca

or simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Thank you for tuning into the Designer Practice Podcast.

And until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

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