Picking a good supervisor

Supervision is a huge aspect to counselling and psychotherapy and with ever increasing changes coming in with the national standards and reviews of supervision standards, now is a good time to consider where things are at and going for you! Supervision makes a core part of what we do as counsellors and social workers, as well as being mandatory to complete a minimum of ten hours per year, though many will do more than this initially.

I have also recently had several emails from counsellors and psychotherapists around needing additional hours to meet registration requirements. Therefore, supervision, like the therapy relationship needs a good fit between the supervisor and supervisee to gel. In more regional areas, such as the Central West and Riverina, we are often restricted to online work due to have fewer local people with specialities in the area. However, this is a fantastic way to find a good fit. I always recommend my supervisees to make contact and chat to a few supervisors.

All supervisors will have different approaches and styles, as well as working differently with different client populations. For example, I would be less likely to support eating issues as this is not an area I am versed in, so I usually recommend chatting to supervisors with this similar approaches and practices to see if they would be a better fit. I also recommend if someone is wishing to specialise in an area, to also align with a supervisor with this area of focus.

It is important to consider and even make a list of negotiables and non-negotiables in supervision. This allows you to quickly work out those who might be a fit, and those who may not. Asking your supervisor these questions, as well as getting them to tell you a little about themselves, their experiences and years in practices can usually go a long way to work out if someone will be a good fit as a supervisor.

Another aspect is cost, and frequency. We work on a sliding scale but also offer a speciality few areas of supervision so are often set on these. Working out how many hours you need, especially if you have been advised to make additional hours up can be good, as you can pre-emptively then work out what will be a fit time and cost wise.

The landscape of supervision is likely to shift over the next few years. With more need for supervision of supervisors, as well as new peer groups as an option, there are several ways to be able to build hours up and manage this around ongoing costs and time commitments. Discussing with your prospective supervisor these in’s and out is good, as well as developing a collaborative focus how to address the issues at hand. Often, I ask supervisees to bring in real life client cases, ethical and legal issues and practice building, barriers, to name just a few.