“Supervision is essential to how practitioners sustain good practice throughout their working life. It provides practitioners with regular and ongoing opportunities to reflect in depth about all aspects of their practice in order to work as effectively, safely and ethically as possible”
(BACP Good Practice in Action)
Clinical Supervision
Clinical supervision is at the heart of keeping us safe and sane in our work. It is a parallel supportive relationship to the one you provide to your clients, a confidential space where you can fully express how it is for you working as a therapist.
A good supervisory relationship is one where you can hope to feel understood, validated, reassured and positively challenged to keep learning and growing.
Clinical supervision strikes a balance between you, your clients and your practice.
Some of the key elements of supervision include:
- Development: to help you develop your knowledge & skills base so you can learn and and grow professionally
- Reflection: to help you reflect on your work and learn from mistakes
- Guidance: receive advice and feedback on professional best practice
- Clarification: help with ethical and professional decision-making
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Confidence: help you gain confidence and proficiency
Blended Supervision
Clinical Supervision is about working safely and effectively with your clients, focusing on theory, relationship, dynamics and process.
Blended Supervision includes the core element of clinical work but adds more of you into the mix. Being a therapist is a career which can grow and move in multiple ways but we don’t often get to talk about that in our supervision. We put our clients first. With a blended approach you can split your supervision time talking about your client work but also focusing on areas where you would like to develop your practice.
Accreditation: Going for your accreditation can feel like jumping through hoops if you don’t have the right support. Working with a supervisor who is experienced in the accreditation process can transform it from a daunting ‘thing to be done’ into a collaborative, creative and engaging piece of CPD.
Private Practice: Most therapists have dreams of working for themselves in private practice. Whether this is just seeing a few private clients outside of your main job, or working towards being fully self-employed, it can seem a daunting prospect to make the leap. Working with a supervisor who specialises in private practice can help you navigate the early set up stages, work out the details of where/how/what you are offering and make the transition in a way which feels exciting but manageable.
Portfolio Working: Although client work is at the heart of being a therapist, there are many other ways for you to share your knowledge and experience. You may want to move into other ways of working – new client groups, specialisms, theoretical models, supervising, offering training – the possibilities are endless and talking them through can help you to decide which route to take, what training you need and how to add successfully add more strings to your bow.
Contract & Fees
Supervision is available online via Zoom, Whats App or telephone. Additional support is available between monthly sessions for urgent issues.
Clinical Supervision
Best practice guidance is for 1.5hrs of supervision per month. You may wish to have more than this is you have a heavy or complex caseload e.g. 1hr every 2 weeks.
Blended Supervision:
If you are looking for support with your career goals and new ways of working, we would divide our time between the essential clinical supervision and then focusing on whichever other area you want to develop. Depending on your case load we may need to book additional sessions.
Fees are £65 for an hour, £95 for 1.5hrs.
What My Private Practice Could Do For You
Andrea started with the blended approach to supervision in 2023. She wanted fresh energy and motivation from a supervisor who could support her clinical work and help with both her BACP accreditation and growing her private practice. She had tried to apply for her accreditation in the past and this attempt had dented her belief that she could successfully become accredited.
“Alex’s reviews on Google were excellent and I made the decision that I’d be able to work with her effectively after an initial exploratory Zoom call. I would have left my accreditation and probably not tackled it again! It is important to get ‘back on the bike’ once you fall off, it is just knowing how to get back on. For me, a change of supervisor, a fresh approach and a new style was the answer. Alex was very encouraging without being pushy and nothing was too much trouble to look at, as many times as I needed. Her feedback on each piece of work was invaluable as is her experience on the interpretation of the tasks I was being asked to complete.”
Working together on the accreditation gave us a shared understanding of Andrea’s working model, her theoretical stance and the way she approaches her work with ethical best practice in mind. Andrea completed her accreditation application within a few months and while she waited for her (positive) result from BACP, we talked about making changes to her private practice. We identified one of her goals as being able to work remotely so she could perhaps travel overseas in the future and set a deadline for moving all her face to face to working solely online. She registered with BUPA and alongside referrals from her website she now has an entirely online practice, working hours that suit her lifestyle and earning a good income.
“For me as a busy working mother, it was important to work with a supervisor who could offer a holistic approach to my practice and combine the clinical, accreditation and private practice aspects. The way we work allows me to move naturally between the areas and, when I have shared my goals with Alex, we have worked on them together to help me focus and develop. I feel I can ask Alex anything and also tell her anything, resulting in all our sessions maintaining a foundation of open communication and honesty. I feel fully in control of the process and, for me, the blended approach looks at every dimension of me as a therapist and my clinical work, approach and mindset. This allows me to work smarter and more effectively, which offers a deeper, more considered service to my clients. I’d say they all continue to pull together to build the therapist I am today. For me, it is important to be the best version of myself that I can be, in order to be of service to all my clients effectively and supervision is a vital part of that.”
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