Supervision outcomes: Beginning the journey beyond the emperor’s new clothes.

Abstract

Clinical supervision is a distinct professional competency and has been acknowledged consensually as such for over a decade. In addition, psychology has entered a competency and implementation science era. However, multiple aspects of investigation of clinical supervision including efficacy and specific outcomes have been long in coming. This issue on supervision outcomes was initiated to address innovative practices in assessing supervision process as well as supervisee and client outcomes. However, during the process of organizing the issue, it became increasingly clear that there are multiple steps that precede outcome assessment, that outcome assessment is also an important tool in the process of supervision, and that the entire process of supervision is acutely in need of understanding and developing empirical support for its components and impacts. Attention is required to address both input regarding clinical supervision training and the outcomes of supervision on supervisee competence and client status. Comprehensive evaluation of outcomes is long overdue and requires immediate attention. This issue serves as a platform for further exploration by describing strategies and frameworks to construct scaffolding to study the process of supervision and both supervisee and client outcomes. Such inquiry should serve to enhance the valence of clinical supervision and impress the imperative of systematic supervision training on accreditation organizations, graduate schools, and regulatory bodies.

Evaluating social work supervision

“…Falender (2014), a champion of competency based supervision, argues that, before any outcome assessment can take place, preliminary steps need to be taken. "The entire process of supervision is acutely in need of understanding and developing empirical support for its components and impacts" (p. 143).…”

A case study of the challenges for an integrative practitioner learning a new psychological therapy

“…There was an implicit assumption, reinforced by patients’ therapeutic progress that being “qualified” meant that she already understood the therapeutic model in play. Our experience bears out the need, described by several recent critics, to subject the processes and aims of supervision in clinical psychology specifically, and psychotherapy more generally, to more scrutiny than it has received (Falender, ; Falender, Shafranske & Ofek, ; Milne, Sheikh, Pattison & Wilkinson, ). Lilienfeld et al.…”

Current trends in clinical supervision: Introduction to the special section

“…Internationally, also, there has been an increased focus on professional standards in supervision training, partly due to the recognition that supervision is a professional practice in its own right (Falender, 2014). Prior to this, it was assumed, akin to training, that the "germ theory of education" (Beutler, 1995, p. 489) prevailed and one could supervise but virtue of the fact one had exposure to and experience of being supervised.…”

“…Among the evidence gaps recently acknowledged, the paucity of longitudinal studies regarding supervisee development ; supervisor development and competence and within that multicultural competence Watkins, 2012); the need to empirically revisit the supervisory alliance construct (Watkins, 2014); the impact of inadequate and harmful supervision and in general, outcomes for supervisee and clients (Falender, 2014;Hill & Knox, 2013) remain, among many others, fertile areas for ongoing investigation. Despite the fact that supervision outcomes, particularly for clients, might currently be considered as "terra incognita" in the field, there is an emerging body of literature contributing to our knowledge base in this area (e.g.…”