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Clinical Supervision: Theories, skills and practices, is a practical, hands-on guide that will assist you in developing the critical skills necessary for clinical supervision and case management. Throughout the book, you will have an opportunity to reflect on questions to expand your insight and understanding around key concepts and critical skills. You will be presented with exercises to assist you with skills application and skills transfer to your clinical supervision practice. Roles, responsibilities and expectations are clarified for supervisors and supervisees, defining boundaries and duties for both positions.
Clinical supervisors in today's global workplace are faced with the responsibility of assuming a broad range of roles and tasks. New clinical supervisors often feel like they are blindly running a maze. Without the proper skills, it is nearly impossible to navigate confidently and competently through the variety of required roles and responsibilities that are thrust upon them daily.
There are numerous laws at the federal, state and municipal levels that govern the employer/employee relationship. This book will provide you with general information about the major laws and practices that may impact your role as a clinical supervisor. The information provided is not all-inclusive or comprehensive. It is not intended to substitute for competent legal counsel or legal representation by a qualified attorney. The laws mentioned here may change during any legislative session and new ones may be added. The burden of staying current and knowledgeable falls upon your shoulders.
The author is not a lawyer or a member of any bar association. The intent of this publication is not to provide legal counsel, legal advice or legal guidance. The purpose is to increase your consciousness and awareness of the major laws. You can learn how to make informed, responsible decisions while managing your employees within the scope and framework of the law. You will also learn when to seek help and assistance to assist in the prevention of possible litigation or to mitigate potential damages when litigation appears inevitable.
Chapter One: Clinical Supervision: Roles & Responsibilities, introduces Nine Clinical Supervision Skills. When used consistently, these skills can make your daily "run" through the maze less frustrating and more enjoyable.
Skill #1, Practicing Clear Communication includes a review of the Communications Model and an introduction to the Diversity Spheres Model. Here, you will learn about many contextual variables including age, race, color, sex, abilities and sexual orientation.
In the Communications & Filters Model discussion, you will gain a deeper awareness and broader understanding around how what you say is not always understood as what you meant. You will discover how the contextual variables unique to your life circumstances function as filters, impacting your daily messages and feedback loops in conversations you have with other people.
The elements of clear communication skills are introduced for clinical supervisors. A discussion about active listening skills and some exercises for practicing these skills addresses the importance of attending to what is being said both verbally and nonverbally including body language, nonverbal communications, such as gestures, facial expressions, posture, tone, volume and speech inflection.
Next, strategies are identified for proactively avoiding unnecessarily painful conflicts and clarifying unintended misunderstandings that inevitably arise out of your day-to-day interactions with your supervisees and clients. Our culture and our educational systems do not routinely train us to effectively listen when others are speaking to us.
This chapter ends with a discussion and some exercises about understanding your personal filters. Knowing your preferences and tendencies that may impact personal decision-making is essential when you are attempting to practice inclusive clinical supervision leadership with a diverse group of supervisees and clients.
Chapter Two: Inclusive Clinical Supervision, explores the concept of inclusive clinical supervision leadership. Inclusive clinical supervision leadership is an authentic, aligned coaching relationship. It is a dynamic, genuine interrelationship among the clinical supervisor, each supervisee, and their clients.
Inclusive leaders quickly identify and swiftly remove inhibitors to continuous learning and continuous improvement and they implement enhancers wherever possible. They actively and authentically engage each supervisee in an ongoing process of learning new practice-related skills and continually improving clinical competence in alignment with the profession's standards of practice.
You will learn Skill #2 Identifying Inclusion Inhibitors & Implementing Inclusion Enhancers. Inclusion inhibitors are identified along with techniques for creating and implementing inclusion enhancers within your clinical supervision practice. You will discover how to assess and change your behaviors and interactions with others to create and maintain authenticity and alignment within yourself and how to develop this skill in your supervisees.
Chapter Three: Creating A Personal Supervision Model begins with Skill #3 Leading By Example: Practicing Authenticity & Alignment. Authenticity is the practice of being authentic or genuine in your interactions. When you are authentic, what others see is what they get, second-guessing and assumptions are unnecessary. Authenticity builds trust, respect and confidence between inclusive supervisors and their supervisees, and between supervisees and their clients.
Inclusive leadership also involves maintaining alignment between your personal clinical supervision style and the standards of practice within your profession. It is about genuinely believing and clearly expressing your thoughts in a manner that is congruent and not contradictory in nature. Staying in alignment means that your actions and interactions parallel the same course as that of your profession.
Next, you will learn the three types of clinical supervision models: they are Developmental Models, Integrated Models and Orientation-Specific Models. These models are not mutually exclusive they share common elements. Each model addresses creating safety within the supervisory relationship, methods for approaching various learning styles, task-directed structure, multiple supervisory roles, and communication skills.
You will have an opportunity to use reflection exercises to uncover your personal clinical supervision model and style drawn from existing models. Here, you will discover that your own clinical supervision model is constantly growing, changing and evolving as you continue to broaden and deepen your personal experiences and insights.
In Chapter Four: Clinical Supervision Practice Management, you will get an overview of the various forms, policies and procedures necessary for managing an inclusive practice. Recommendations will be made for creating and managing a clinical supervision practice utilizing an inclusive leadership model. Specific suggestions are provided to help you increase diversity awareness in your practice.
Next, you will learn Skill #4 Practicing Clinical Supervision Within The Profession's Standards Of Practice. Here, you will learn the skills necessary to assist you in client case management, supervisee case management and practicing clinical supervision in compliance with your profession's standards of practice.
You will learn how to consistently create and implement standards and practices in alignment with your personal clinical supervision model, allowing you to practice within the scope of your profession's ethical standards. The major legal and ethical issues will also be addressed.
In Chapter Five: Recruiting Competent Supervisees, you will learn Skill #5 Recruiting Competent Supervisees. The importance of assessing each supervisee's educational background, clinical skills and relevant experience to determine job fit will be discussed. You will learn how to clarify core competencies for effectively performing essential clinical and case management functions and how to match candidates to these competencies.
Chapter Six: Competency Skills Management, introduces you to Skill #6 Implementing Competency Skills Management. This chapter begins with an overview of counselor development stages. Next, you will learn how to use position descriptions (job descriptions) to clarify supervisee competency standards and how to effectively engage supervisees in competence improvement coaching.
Competency coaching is a three-fold process. You begin with your collective observations of a supervisee's competence with clients. Next, you compare observed behaviors and competence to the pre-determined goals and share this information with your supervisee. Together, you formulate strategies for incremental learning and incremental improvement toward achieving the pre-determined competence goals. Third, you provide effective coaching to assist and motivate your supervisee in implementing the strategies and hitting the targeted goals. This three-fold process is ongoing. It is illustrated in the Competency Coaching Model.
The Competency Appraisal Process Model integrates the concepts of competency coaching and competency appraisal. This ongoing process is the foundation for competency skills management.
In Chapter Seven, Effectively Managing Conflict, you will learn Skill #7 Managing Conflict & Resolving Disputes. This chapter begins with a definition of conflict and a discussion of conflict's characteristics. The Conflict Response/Reaction Model is presented which diagrams the relationships between conflict events and our possible responses/reactions to them based on personal decisions we make in the moment.
The chapter closes with an introduction and overview of Ten Conflict Resolution Skills: (1) Encourage each party to tell his or her story in its entirety, (2) Listen to each party's point of view, (2) Isolate each conflict event, (4) Identify common ground between parties, (5) Clarify barriers inhibiting conflict resolution, (6) Brainstorm around possible solutions, (7) Create resolution strategies, (8) Negotiate mutual commitment to a resolution, (9) Write out an agreement, and (10) Follow-up. These skills will assist you in facilitating conflict resolution discussions with supervisees when they are experiencing conflict. They will also guide you in resolving your own conflict events as they arise with other coworkers, supervisors and supervisees.
A brief overview of Employment Laws & Practices will be presented in Chapter Eight. You will learn Skill #8 Managing In Compliance With The Law. The overall structure of laws in the United States will be discussed. Then the major federal laws governing the employer/employee relationship will be highlighted. Following the federal laws will be a discussion around state and municipal laws and the employer/employee relationship. This chapter closes with a discussion about company policies on employment harassment and discrimination.
Illegal Discrimination and Harassment will be reviewed in Chapter Nine. Definitions of discrimination and harassment will be given along with examples illustrating each concept. The exercise, "What's Going On?" gives you an opportunity to consider a variety of scenarios and determine whether the behaviors and interactions are acceptable behaviors for the workplace, policy violations or unlawful discrimination or harassment.
Chapter Ten: Sexual Harassment will begin with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (E.E.O.C.) formal definition of sexual harassment and several examples of this type of illegal behavior. Preventative practices will be outlined and discussed along with the identification of employer responsibilities.
In Chapter Eleven: Confronting Discrimination & Harassment you will learn Skill #9 Confronting And Eliminating Discrimination And Harassment, followed by a discussion of two tools for confronting offenders engaged in discriminatory or harassing behaviors in the workplace. The first is direct communication and the second is asking for help. Six case studies follow this introduction providing the reader with opportunities to apply the knowledge and skills outlined in this text to the assessment of potential discriminatory or harassing incidents and the application of specific interventions to eliminate their occurrences and create both a harassment-free and discrimination-free workplace environment.
Chapter Twelve: Managing Allegations of Discrimination & Harassment provides you with a checklist for responding to discrimination or harassment allegations. A manager's/supervisor's investigation responsibilities checklist is also included to ensure that the appropriate actions are taken and documented during the course of an investigation of alleged discriminatory or harassing behaviors toward an employee.
Taking responsibility for offending others is a critical concept for both managers and employees. None of us is exempt from this experience. Six effective tools for taking responsibility for your actions when confronted by someone whom you have offended will be presented. These are: (1) actively listening for understanding, (2) refraining from giving excuses, (3) apologizing sincerely, (4) asking for more details to understand their perspective, (5) acknowledging their feelings even if you don't understand, and (6) formulating an action plan for the future.
The Index includes:
Reference section for all sources cited in the text;
Resources section including: