Core Components of a 40 Hour Supervisor Training

Posted on by drk8d
Texas supervisor training program, speaking, consulting
40 hour supervisor training, consultation
Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor and Dr. Christopher Taylor Ph.D., LPC-S

40 hour supervisor training, consultationOn May 19 2018 Dr. Chris Taylor and I traveled to El Paso and delivered a train the trainer course to twenty licensed professional counselors. Why? Because there is a massive shortage of licensed mental health providers in the El Paso and surrounding areas and the domino effect is devastating. Where there are few licensed providers there are few approved supervisors and where there are few approved supervisors there are few interns. Bottom line: we can’t attract new professionals into rural communities unless we establish a pipeline of licensed professionals willing to become approved supervisors.

Thanks to Dr. Paul Carrola, The University of Texas El Paso, and the Paso del Norte Center for Mental and Emotional Well Being we were able to deliver a FREE six hour training to licensed professional counselors interested in providing the 40 hour supervisor training. Using the content from the Kate Walker Training 40 Hour LPC/LMFT supervisor course, we were able to give participants a solid foundation to provide their own 40 hour course. We chose to focus on four key elements:

  1. Become a CE Provider
  2. Create legal/compliant content
  3. Create practical/effective content
  4. Create content that safeguards the public and your license

40 hour supervisor training, consultationBecome a CE Provider

First, fill out the form, write your check to the state, and become a CE provider. As of the date of this published blog, in Texas both LPC and LMFT rules require that you must become an approved CE provider before you can sell seats to your own 40 hour training. LPC rules go on to stipulate that 40 hour teachers must also be approved supervisors and approved 40 hour training providers.

Compliant Content

Next, you must have content that is compliant with the rules for the training you wish to teach. This includes not only checking out LPC and LMFT rules for the content you must include, you must also make sure you cover recent rule changes, trending complaints, and policies the board may have adopted but not published yet. Creating compliant content means as a trainer you must attend board meetings so you will be familiar not only with the rules but with the latest board actions and policies.

40 hour supervisor training, consultationPractical Content

In addition to compliant content, you must deliver practical tools. As a wise man once told me, “I’ve never heard a complaint against someone because they didn’t know their theories.” Most board complaints against supervisors are administrative in nature. The supervisor didn’t keep accurate records; the supervisor wasn’t aware of the number of supervision hours needed each month; or the supervisor didn’t provide enough documentation. When you teach a supervision course you must provide practical tools so new supervisors are successful.

Content that Safeguards the Public

Finally, you must provide content to help new supervisors safeguard the public, their license, and your license. How do you teach a new intern to assess suicidal and homicidal ideation? Assess and report abuse? Stay safe with violent clients or dicey work settings? These are things your participants may KNOW because they are seasoned practitioners. As the instructor you must teach your participants how to ‘teach that skill’ to level 1 interns who may think they already know it all. At Kate Walker Training we devote time to helping our participants go beyond a supervision contract so they are able to confidently teach new interns these skills before they ever start seeing clients.40 hour training, consultation

We need more supervisors! We also know that designing and delivering an effective supervisor training can be hard. If you are interested in becoming a trainer, stay tuned. We’ll have more info coming the end of August.

 

Edu-Preneur: Create Your Own Supervisor Training Course

Posted on by drk8d
Supervisor training, speaking, consultation

“What is holding you back from creating your own 40-hour supervisor training?”

This question was part of the presentation I was giving with Dr. Paul Carrola and Dr. Amy Wilson at the Texas Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Mid-Winter conference. I was speaking to a room of about fifteen people curious about how to pull off a forty-hour supervisor training in their community. The most common barrier? Time. Participants worried about the time they would need to divert from their practices to create content and manage participants. In my article “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Creating a Counselor Supervisor Course,” I described some key components to help potential course designers. After my TACES presentation, however, I realized I need to talk about content, systems, and tools.

Supervisor Training Content

Supervisor training course content is prescribed by state licensing boards, accrediting bodies, and universities. In many states this is spelled out explicitly. The Texas LPC code, for example, defines the topics that must be covered in a supervisor training course. Unfortunately, since most potential supervisor trainers are not professional educators they don’t have easy access to powerpoints and textbooks. In those instances the content must be generated the old fashioned way, outsourced to content developers for a fee, or borrowed from public domain sources.

Participant Management Systems

Potential supervisor training participants will go through three stages: pre-purchasers, participants, and course graduates. Supervisor trainers must be able to manage expectations at each stage. Good participant management systems, organizational systems, and financial systems can help. Pre-purchasers need information about eligibility and law. They need quick responses to email and phone queries.  Most will also need to know your refund policy before they decide to follow through with their purchase. Participants have assignments to complete and deadlines to meet. If your supervisor training course requires online or outside assignments, then you must have a system to keep track of successful completion. Course graduates will need support and access to replacement certificates. Remember graduation from your course doesn’t mean the course graduate is automatically granted supervisor status. There may be a waiting period to gather more experience.  In Texas the course is only good for two years and Texas LPCs only have ninety days to complete it. You must have a system to track and be able to prove when the course graduates officially began and successfully (or unsuccessfully) completed your course.

Practical Tools

Course graduates appreciate helpful tools to help them begin integrating supervision into their private practice. It’s great if you can offer them supervisor toolkits, helpful software ideas, and economical apps. Remember your course graduates are your best source of good reviews and new referrals so help them leave your course feeling fully equipped! Follow up with them through emails and social media and help them stay connected with state organizations and other course graduates.

Content, systems, and tools are just a few things that will really make your supervisor training stand out and benefit your participants. Keep checking this blog for more great ideas!

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Creating a Counselor Supervisor Training Course

Posted on by drk8d
Supervisor training consulting speaking
Interesting Day at the LPC Board Meeting

I was at the Texas LPC Board meeting for Applications and Supervision Issues Committees Meeting June 15, and it was an interesting day. The cases that disturbed me the most were the ones involving forty-hour supervisor training courses that were not following the rules. Issues included:

·       Supervisor training instructors allowing their continuing education provider status lapse and teaching the course anyway

·       Supervisor training offered to LPCs by non-LPCs

·       Supervisor training courses that did not offer enough ethics CEs to meet the Texas LPC requirements

·       Supervisor courses that were listed on the LPC Board’s list of approved providers who do not currently meet the LPC board requirements

The Domino Effect

Anyone can make a mistake. Offering a forty-hour training is hard work and there is a lot to keep up with. Mistakes in the 40-hour training arena are compounded, however, because of the number of people involved. When the mistake is discovered, any action by the board will affect several new supervisors, dozens of counseling interns, and who-knows-how-many clients on the interns’ rosters. Anyone creating a supervisor training course must be aware of this domino effect.

I co-created the Kate Walker Training 40-Hour Supervisor Training course alongside my mentor Dr. Judy DeTrude in 2007 (when we were achievebalance.org). I had NO idea what I was doing and without her knowledge and guidance the course would have fizzled early on. Now in 2017 we are about to begin Cohort 30 and our curriculum is stronger than ever.

Speaking to Future Supervisor Trainers

When I am speaking at events or consulting one-on-one with mental health professional, I find most want to know how to grow in their career and give back to their community. Many want to know how to create their own 40 hour training course. Here is what I tell them:

1.     Don’t do it alone. Working with a co-creator, involving other LPC or LMFT instructors, having colleagues I can consult with at any time means that although my name is on the certificate, I am not making decisions in a vacuum.

2.     Read the rules. A lot. I know this sounds obvious, but you are creating a train-the-trainer course so you must know the rules better than anyone who will be taking your course. This means going to disciplinary hearings as well.

3.     Develop an adult-learning-model teaching style. No one wants death by PowerPoint. If you have never taught or managed grown-ups before then get some practice. Offer to teach some local community college courses or substitute teach at a local high school,

4.     Assess, assess, assess. The only way you will know if you are teaching what you think you are teaching is to ask your participants if they understand. The KWT Training Course instructors conduct an assessment after each learning module so we know if we are teaching the material effectively.

5.     Have fun! A forty-hour training can be pretty intense. Break it up, show You Tube Videos, do group work, and play with marshmallows and spaghetti. The people who take this course are your colleagues and friends. Welcome them to the supervisor community!

There is a good, bad, and ugly side of creating and delivering an effective counselor supervisor training course. If you would like more information about starting your own course, give us a call. We’d love to help you out!