Services
Clinical supervision
Supervision for students on placement, clinicians working toward independent registration, and registered practitioners who want consultation on the cases that are not moving. Provided by qualified, registered supervisors we match to your needs, by secure video, across Canada.
Taking supervisees
Who this is for
- Practicum students on placement
- Registered Psychotherapists, and RP (Qualifying)
- Registered Social Workers
- Psychologists and psychological associates
Who supervision is for
Different stages want different things from the hour, so it helps to be clear which one you are at.
In training
- Practicum students
- First clinical hours, with the supervision your programme requires and the documentation it asks for.
- Interns and residents
- Heavier caseloads, harder presentations, and the shift from following a protocol to reasoning with one.
- New graduates
- The stretch between the last supervised hour and the first unsupervised one, which is where most people struggle.
Already registered
- Registered Psychotherapists, and RP (Qualifying)
- Directed practice hours toward independent registration, or ongoing consultation once you have it.
- Registered Social Workers
- Clinical supervision on psychotherapy practice specifically, which a generalist social work supervisor may not cover.
- Psychologists and psychological associates
- Peer consultation rather than supervision, on caseloads outside your usual range.
Areas covered
- CBT, DBT, EFT and the Gottman Method
- Trauma work and EMDR
- Family and systems work
- Anxiety and mood presentations
- Working across culture and language
The model is developmental rather than fixed: earlier on the hour is more directive and more about competence, later it is mostly consultation. If something you carry sits outside the list above, say so when you first get in touch and you will get an honest answer about whether this is the right supervisor for it.
What the hour is spent on
Roughly in this order, though a live crisis in your caseload displaces everything else.
The cases that are not moving
The stuck ones, in detail: what you have formulated, what you have tried, what the client is actually doing, and what you might be missing. Most of the hour goes here.
What is happening to you in the room
Countertransference, the clients you dread, the ones you think about at 2am, and the ones you like too much. This is clinical material, not a confession.
Ethics, boundaries and the paperwork
Consent, capacity, duty to report, subpoenas, records requests, and how to write a note that will hold up if someone reads it in three years.
Specific skills, practised
Rehearsing the intervention you keep fluffing, role-playing the conversation you are avoiding, and watching the difference between knowing a technique and delivering it.
Whether you can keep doing this
Caseload size, the balance of presentations you are carrying, and what burnout looks like early rather than after it has happened.
Format
- Individual
- 60 minutes, weekly or fortnightly, by secure video.
- Group
- 90 minutes, three to five supervisees, by secure video.
- Records
- Hours logged and notes kept in the form your college wants them.
- Review
- Written feedback at intervals, and a formal evaluation where your programme requires one.
What each side brings
What the supervisor brings
- Registration in good standing as a Registered Social Worker
- Clinical practice in the modalities being supervised, not only training in them
- Supervision-specific training, kept current
- Experience across the presentations listed on this page
What you bring
- Current enrolment in an accredited programme, if you are a student
- Your own professional liability insurance
- Cases you are willing to bring when they are going badly, not only when they are going well
- Willingness to be told something you would rather not hear
Meeting regulatory requirements
Supervision is set up with CRPO and OCSWSSW requirements in mind, including the hour logs, notes and verification letters those registration processes ask for. Colleges differ and they change their rules, so check your own college's current requirements before you start and say what it needs. For psychologists and psychological associates, what is offered is peer consultation rather than supervision toward registration.
Preparing for the CRPO Registration Examination as an RP (Qualifying) registrant, or supervising someone who is? The CRPO Exam Lab has realistic cases in the exam's format, with the reasoning for every option. CRPO exam prep in the CRPO Exam Lab
Start clinical supervision
Write with your stage, your college and what you want from supervision. A first hour spent on a case that is going badly is usually the best test of fit.