Supervision in Community Mental Health Understanding Intensity of EBT Focus

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in Behavior Therapy and is available as an open-access article. The goal of the present study is to examine clinician, supervisor, and organizational factors that are associated with the intensity of evidence-based treatment (EBT) focus in workplace-based clinical supervision of a specific EBT, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Supervisors (n = 56) and clinicians (n = 207) from mental health organizations across Washington State completed online self-report questionnaires. Multilevel modeling (MLM) analyses were used to examine the relative influence of nested clinician and supervisor factors on the intensity of EBT focus in supervision. We found that 33% of the variance in clinician reports of EBT supervision intensity clustered at the supervisor level and implementation climate was the only significant factor associated with EBT supervision intensity. While individual clinician and supervisor factors may play a role in EBT coverage in supervision, our results suggest that an implementation climate that supports EBT may be the most critical factor for improving the intensity of EBT coverage. Thus, implementation efforts that address the extent to which EBTs are expected, rewarded, and supported within an organization may be needed to support greater coverage of EBT during workplace-based supervision. This course on EBT-focused supervision in community mental health is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for advanced-level practitioners who wish to increase their knowledge of EBT-focused supervision in mental health. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article that includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A major benefit of reading research-based articles for continuing education is they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Lucid, Meza, Pullmann, Jungbluth, Deblinger, and Dorsey Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding EBT-focused supervision in community mental health. Specifically, a professional will: Identify the supervisory functions most relevant to EBT Distinguish the levels at which factors should be examined in order to understand which variables influence supervision practices Summarize the variables positively associated with clinician-reported EBT supervision intensity Citation: Lucid, L., et al. Supervision in Community Health: Understanding Intensity of EBT Focus. Behav Ther. 49(4): 481-493. July 2018.