Continuing Education: What Actually Holds Up with Jennifer Marie Fairchild

Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive #206 Continuing Education: What Actually Holds Up with Jennifer Marie Fairchild

What Makes a Continuing Education Course Actually Hold Up?

I do not mean what makes a course look good on a sales page or what gets you a certificate the fastest. I mean what helps you when a supervisee brings you a situation you have never seen before and your license is attached to the decisions you make. That is a very different standard.

I have been a counselor, educator, supervisor, and CE provider for a long time. Jennifer sees another side of our training programs every day because she handles support tickets, assignment questions, grader concerns, and the real situations supervisors bring back to us months or even years after they finish a course. Those questions have taught us something important: a training should not simply help you finish. It should help you practice.

Quality Continuing Education for Supervisors Must Stay Current

I see counselors shopping for continuing education based on the number of hours, the price, and how quickly they can finish. I understand why. We are busy, and many of us live in places where face-to-face CE options are limited. Online training gives us access we did not have before, but convenience also creates a responsibility to look closely at what we are buying.

When Jennifer and I discussed the way AI is changing continuing education, we were not arguing that professionals should never use AI. We use it too. The problem is treating a fast answer like a verified answer. While our team was researching future courses state by state, we compared answers from different AI tools and found conflicting and outdated information. That meant going back to the original sources and checking again.

Supervisors need to know how to do that because rules change, technology changes, documentation changes, and the questions supervisees bring into supervision change. Before you purchase a course, look for observable evidence that someone is maintaining it. You should be able to tell when it was updated, whether current rules and references are being reviewed, and who is responsible for keeping the material accurate. A course can continue to exist online long after the information inside it has stopped being useful.

Information Is Not the Same as Learning to Supervise

This is one of the places where I think continuing education can miss the mark. Supervision is not just remembering information. When we think about Bloom's Taxonomy, memorizing content is only one level of learning. Supervision asks you to take information, analyze a situation, make a professional decision, communicate that decision, and often document why you made it.

That matters because you are no longer making decisions only about your own clinical practice. Your supervisee is making decisions that affect clients you may never meet, and you are helping guide that work. That requires application, not just exposure to content.

A strong supervisor training should give you opportunities to demonstrate what you would actually do. You should be practicing ethical decision making, documentation, evaluation, remediation, communication, and problem solving in ways that resemble the work itself. This is one reason I tell supervisors to look beyond a course outline and ask what systems the course actually teaches. My related article on essential systems a strong LPC supervisor course should teach goes deeper into the structures supervisors need after the certificate is earned.

Human Support Still Matters

Jennifer sees this all the time. Someone completes a course, then months or even years later a supervisee does something unexpected. Suddenly the supervisor is facing a situation that was not neatly covered in a module and thinking, What do I do? My license is connected to this.

That is when the relationship behind the training matters. We have former participants who reach back out years after completing a course. Sometimes Jennifer can answer the question. Sometimes she brings it to me. If I do not know, we research it. That process matters because supervision is full of nuance, and sometimes the most important part of the answer is identifying what still needs to be verified.

A database can give you information. A human who understands supervision can help you clarify the question, think through the systems involved, and decide what source you need to consult next. When you evaluate training, look at what happens after enrollment. Can you contact the provider? Is there an opportunity to ask for clarification? Who answers supervision questions? Is there a professional community connected to the course?

A long training without meaningful interaction can leave a learner with forty hours of content and no idea how to apply it Monday morning.

Check the Training Before You Pay

Toward the end of our conversation, I pulled out my notes because I wanted this to be practical. Before purchasing a substantial continuing education or supervisor training course, start with the instructor. You should know who is teaching it, what their credentials are, and why they are qualified to teach the material.

Next, look for evidence that the course is current. If the topic involves laws, licensing rules, technology, documentation, telehealth, AI, or supervision requirements, the update date matters. You should also be able to review enough of the course structure to understand what you are buying. A syllabus, reference list, or description of the instructional approach can tell you a lot.

Jennifer made an important point here. Basic information that helps you evaluate a course should not all be hidden behind a paywall. You should have enough information to make an informed decision before spending your money.

For supervisors specifically, I also recommend reviewing current expectations around the role itself. My article on Texas LPC supervisor requirements and the realities of supervision can help you compare a course against the responsibilities you will actually be taking on.

Feedback Is Part of Quality Control

Nobody loves a negative review, and Jennifer and I laughed about that because we are human. Criticism can sting. But feedback is also data, and if you are serious about providing quality continuing education, you have to be willing to look at what participants are telling you.

When somebody tells us a system is confusing, an assignment is frustrating, or an explanation is unclear, our job is not to hide from it. We look at the system and ask what is working, what is not working, what needs to be clarified, and what should change in the next version of the course.

That is how training stays dynamic. A course should not be frozen in time while the profession keeps moving. Rules change. Technology changes. Learners identify gaps. A provider who is still engaged with participants has a better chance of noticing when the course needs to change too.

That does not mean a course will be perfect. It means someone is paying attention.

Training Should Keep Up With You

Here is what I want you to remember. Training that holds up is not simply training you finished once. It is training that prepares you to think, verify, document, ask questions, and respond when the situation in front of you does not look like the example in the module.

You are building the foundation for decisions that affect your supervisees, their clients, and your license. That is why quality continuing education for supervisors matters so much.

Where This Blog Connects

• Texas LPC Supervisor Requirements: Realities of Supervision
• Deep Therapy Questions Might Mean That Your Clients Don't Come Back (And Why That's Okay)
• Boosting Therapist Productivity: Effective Strategies with Jennifer Marie Fairchild

Want to learn more? Check out this month’s free bonus resource from Kate Walker Training. If this episode showed you that your practice systems need a stronger foundation, grab my free guide to help you build a more organized, sustainable private practice.

Want deeper support? Inside the Step It Up Membership, we continue these conversations through continuing education, supervision resources, documentation systems, and practical support for therapists and supervisors building sustainable practices.

Blog post by Kate Walker, Ph.D., LPC-S, LMFT-S
Creator of Texas’s first fully online 40-Hour LPC/LMFT Supervisor Training Course.
Kate is the founder of Kate Walker Training, where she helps counselors, supervisors, and practice owners build sustainable, ethical, and profitable businesses.
Ready to grow your supervision practice? Check out the Supervisor Training Courses.

This post is a written summary of a podcast episode hosted by Dr. Kate Walker. We use AI to help format the transcript and check for clarity and spelling, turning spoken content into an easier-to-read format.