The Availability of Supervision in Routine Mental Health Care

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in Clinical Social Work Journal and is available as an open-access article. Clinical supervision is an embedded resource for practice quality in community mental health organizations. Supervision has been found to increase provider competence and decrease stress. In addition, supervision has been associated with service user outcomes including decreased depressive symptoms. However, little is known about the availability and nature of supervision in real-world settings. The primary aims of this study were to identify available supervision and the extent to which contextual factors are related to that availability. Supervision was measured by hours per week (quantity) and by utilization of best practice activities (content). Participants reported an average of 2.17 hours of supervision per week and 28.6% of participants endorsed best practice content. Supervision quantity varied significantly across sites and program type while content did not. Individual roles within the organization had a significant relationship with reported supervision content. Supervision time also varied by program type, increasing with the intensity of services. Findings demonstrate that reports of availability vary according to position within the organization and the intensity of services within a given program type. Implications for workforce development, access to quality services, and implementation of evidence-based practices are discussed. This course on mental health supervision availability is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate, and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop or increase their knowledge of supervision availability in mental health settings. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require 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: Choy-Brown and Stanhope. Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding supervision availability in mental health. Specifically, a professional will: Recognize the benefits of supervision for community mental health providers Summarize factors that impact the number of hours spent in supervision Explain barriers to implementation of evidence-based practices in supervision Citation: Choy-Brown, M. and Stanhope, V. The Availability of Supervision in Routine Mental Health Care. Clin Soc Work J 46(4): 271-280. December 2018. Doi: 10.1007/s10615-018-0687-0.