Ever wished there was a comprehensive tool that would enhance your interactions with your supervisees, offering transparency, structure, and efficiency? A guarantee sits here for you to discover just that in the form of a Supervision Onboarding Checklist. I'll walk you through both a graduate student and a post-graduate checklist. With grad students I'll talk about the importance of having an emergency contact, supervisee details, including school, internship name, professor's contact information, and vital training like HIPAA. Our chat covers how to turn these items into checkboxes, ensuring you don't miss out any important details and keep everything well-organized, along with highlighting the significance of a policy and procedure signature page.
For post-graduate Associates, we'll move a step further and delve into the critical aspects of documenting specific dates related to your supervisee's work journey. From the starting and ending dates of their breaks to the crucial 18 months on-the-job training, we've got you covered. We'll also address tax classification and payment agreements for supervisees, along with the necessity of a release of information to other sites they might be working at. Additionally, we will shed light on the indispensability of HIPAA training, orientation, and malpractice insurance. With a look at the effective use of scheduling and time-tracking systems, this episode is packed with strategies to elevate your supervisory role to the next level. Tune in as we decode these invaluable tools for you!
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Ever wished there was a comprehensive tool that would enhance your interactions with your supervisees, offering transparency, structure, and efficiency? A guarantee sits here for you to discover just that in the form of a Supervision Onboarding Checklist. I'll walk you through both a graduate student and a post-graduate checklist. With grad students I'll talk about the importance of having an emergency contact, supervisee details, including school, internship name, professor's contact information, and vital training like HIPAA. Our chat covers how to turn these items into checkboxes, ensuring you don't miss out any important details and keep everything well-organized, along with highlighting the significance of a policy and procedure signature page.
For post-graduate Associates, we'll move a step further and delve into the critical aspects of documenting specific dates related to your supervisee's work journey. From the starting and ending dates of their breaks to the crucial 18 months on-the-job training, we've got you covered. We'll also address tax classification and payment agreements for supervisees, along with the necessity of a release of information to other sites they might be working at. Additionally, we will shed light on the indispensability of HIPAA training, orientation, and malpractice insurance. With a look at the effective use of scheduling and time-tracking systems, this episode is packed with strategies to elevate your supervisory role to the next level. Tune in as we decode these invaluable tools for you!
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Hey everybody, if you're watching this live, welcome. Welcome. I'm so glad to have you on our weekly Step it Up training for our Step it Up members. And if you're watching this on Facebook, I probably don't need to tell you this, but you don't have to be on Facebook, remember, you can always go to your Kate Walker training profile and find the Zoom link and you can join me live and you can ask me questions. Or if you're watching this on a replay, you're amazing. I'm so proud of you for watching a replay. If you're listening to it on the podcast, I'm so glad you're here and listening.
Speaker 1:I hope you're enjoying the treadmill or the carpool or whatever it is that you're doing, because today I'm going to dig into a Supervisee Supervision onboarding checklist. Now, I picked the title out for this with A instead of the right the Supervision onboarding checklist because I think a lot of people have taken a shot at this and they've come up with some really good ones. I mean, if you are in the Texas Supervisor Coalition Facebook group, we have the Supervisor and one of our members come up with a great one, so you can go there and you can look in our group files and download it. So it's always good to kind of do one the way your brain works. So the one that I've done for the Step it Up membership it's part of your Texas Supervisor Supervisor I'm sorry, texas Supervisor Coalition, directory tools I come up with these names and they're too long. When you get into that in your K-Walker training profile, you'll see the same onboarding checklist I'm about to show you, but I included it as a Word document so you guys can take it and you can customize it for your practice.
Speaker 1:So let's dig into it and make sure that I am live. Let's make sure that my sound is working. Is my sound working? I'm waiting for the Kate on my screen to say something. It's lagging behind. Hey, everybody, you're watching the slide, yes, okay, so my sound's working, awesome. So hopefully a few folks will be able to tune in today and watch. And here I go. I'm going to share my screen so you can see the one I've come up with. Now, if you're listening to me on the podcast, don't worry, I'm going to describe everything in detail that I am showing folks on the screen. So here I go, all right, so what you're looking at, if you're watching the video, or what you're going to hear, if you're listening to me on the podcast, is a supervisey onboarding checklist. Now I went ahead and made my checklist dual purpose because sometimes you're going to be onboarding a graduate student, you may be onboarding a post grad associate. You know we need people like you who will take on graduates, students, because they are always looking for places to complete their hours. So I'm always looking for ways to make it easier for you to do this tremendous service to those graduate students and you know, by giving them a place to actually accrue some of those hours.
Speaker 1:So the first part of this is I'm writing in and you've got the name right. Number one, their name. Number two emergency contact. Now why would I put this as the number two thing? Because you know most all of the things that I do are because I either made the mistake or it happened to me, or I heard about it some way somehow. So I had a supervisey disappear and I didn't know what happened. Nobody knew what happened and we found out later that they went back to Mexico to renew their visa and they were held up. I mean held up at the border because of a backlog, not held up. So I hope that makes sense. So they were. There was a huge backlog. They were having trouble getting back into the states with their renewed visa and I just never thought to ask for an emergency contact here in the state, someone who could give me information. And this person was seeing clients. So, you know, helping make sure her clients were okay and that they had someone to see if they needed to. I put the emergency contact as the number two most important thing after their name.
Speaker 1:All right, the next four things have to do with grad students. So, number one, the school you're going to enter, the school they belong to, the name of the internship and the number and the professor contact information and their phone number. And you'll probably get this with the supervision paperwork, the university paperwork that you'll have to fill out. There will. All of this will probably be there. So think of this sort of as just a handy dandy check. I got that. In fact, you might want to even turn those into checkboxes because that's a way of telling yourself If I have this information it is filed away somewhere else, but on this checklist I can see that it's done for me. Personally, I kind of like to have this information at my fingertips because if I'm looking at the professor's name and phone number. I'd likely need it quickly, right? It's not something I want to go dig around in a file for.
Speaker 1:So the next. I'm sorry, so that was three things. The next items are checkboxes right? So for checkboxes number one, you're going to check that you have their HIPAA training certificate, and one of the things that happens in university settings is they may forget to make sure everyone is HIPAA trained and documented that they are HIPAA trained, right, you're not going to make that mistake. So this could be used for associates as well. And HIPAA training certificate check, I've got that filed it away, yo, you can even give the training. There's, no, there's nothing that specifies who has to give the training to these grad students and associates, because in Texas, neither one. They need an official CE. That's not part of their education and for post grads, that's not part of maintaining their licensure.
Speaker 1:The second thing is a policy and procedures signature page. Now, this is if you are going to hire these people, the graduate student or the associate. If you're not going to hire them, get rid of it. The next one is the orientation signature page. Now, you know I teach a specific scaffolding, a specific structure for supervisors in order to protect your license. It starts with the interview, of course, but where you really protect yourself is in the orientation, the evaluation, a system to remediate and then termination if you need to. But the orientation is absolutely vital for your supervision practice. I'm not talking about an orientation to the job. Somebody else can take care of that or you can do that on a different day. This is the orientation, where you talk about how you file paperwork, the supervision paperwork, where you keep supervision notes, where your supervisor can access logs, how you two are going to share, maybe, a time tracking app to make sure everybody's up to date and aware of all the hours as they accrue.
Speaker 1:The malpractice insurance copy check Grad students you've got to get a copy of their malpractice insurance. Post grads I don't care if they're working at an agency that says we will provide all of the malpractice insurance. I highly encourage you to make all of your associates have their own malpractice insurance. It's cheap, it's easy and this can be their insurance for the rest of their career. All right, now for four. Oh well, so that kind of got out of line there. Let me back up Now.
Speaker 1:This is for associates, for post grads, so the first few things can be for grad students and maybe even a combination, right, because both grad students and associates you're going to want their HIPAA training certificate, the policy and procedures signature page, if in fact you're hiring them, the orientation signature page, the malpractice insurance copy but we divert here dovetails, veer off a little bit, because now we're talking about the post grad folks. So you want to make sure you document the date their license is live on the website, because this is the day the clock starts for their expiration. Remember, laws changed this year in Texas, 2023,. Lmft associates expire in five years, just like LPC associates. There is no renewal for either one of those post graduate associate licenses, so five years starts on the day that goes live on the website.
Speaker 1:So the second part is well, actually I numbered it number one. That's why I made it a Word document. This reflects my brain, so you're going to want to make sure it reflects your brain. So the date the supervisor saw their first client for the purpose of counting direct hours, accrual time and the acronym is DHAT. This is an 18 month minimum for LPC associates and a 24 month minimum for LMFT associates. So this date will also be used to establish the official month for the LPC associates supervision. So what does this mean For your LPC associates? They must have 18 months of on the job training period and in the story of staff is going to pull your logs, they're going to look to see if that associate worked, saw clients for 18 months.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, that cannot be the same date. I mean sometimes it is. If your associate already has a job, maybe the date their license goes live is the date that they start that on the job training. But for many, many, many associates it may be a month later, maybe two weeks later. Then they come to you and they say, oh my gosh, I saw my first client. You're like, oh, hallelujah, we're going to write that is your DHAT date, right? Somebody said let's call it that. Okay, you call it whatever you like, but that is the date we're going to start counting your on the job training, because LPC specifies 18 months of on the job training, no less. You can do more, but no less than 18 months on the job training. Lmft specifies no less than 24 months on the job training. So you'll write the date here and I'm pointing to the line. So those of you who are listening, it's just a line. You're going to write down the date your associate began seeing clients, all right, and that will help you both track on the job training.
Speaker 1:Now, right below that, number two says the beginning and beginning and end dates of any break of one month or longer. Now this is only going to apply to those LPC associates, because LMFT associates aren't really allowed to take a break of one month or longer. But it's written a little bit differently in the rules and this says you can miss with good cause shown, whereas LPC associates it's literally written in the rules if you need to stop seeing clients for one month or longer. Excuse me, I'm going to go back to the water. Ooh, something's in the air. You and your supervisor can agree to this break and you document that in the supervisee file.
Speaker 1:And now? So what we'll do here is we'll put the beginning and end date of that break. Because, why? Because we're going to subtract it from the on-the-job training, right, if they've been working January, february, march, oh, they're going to take April off. Well, now they can't end in June the following year because they took a month off. They've got to keep working through July. You've got to document 18 months minimum of on-the-job training. So be sure to track the beginning and ending dates for that associate, if they're taking a break from maternity leave or an emergency in the family, it really doesn't matter. It's just that agreement between you and the supervisee.
Speaker 1:All right, you need to document that. You have a piece of paper documented in the supervisee's file if they're seeing clients. Now, this means you're going to document if they're seeing clients at your site. Right, that means we now have to document if you have classified them correctly, if they have the policy and procedure signature page so up at the top. Remember, this was for graduate students. So if you're listening to me, I just scrolled up to the portion where it shows grad students. That is your orientation, the HIPAA training, the policy and procedures. But you notice I didn't include the tax classification here. Right, because generally folks don't pay graduate students. I'm not saying you can't, but generally we don't see that they're paying graduate students who are doing an internship. When you pay them, then you must have tax documentation how you're going to classify them. 1099 versus W2, I've got great podcast episodes about that, very informative blog posts about that. Why are they wonderful? Because I ask the experts, I ask folks who know better than I do how and why we classify folks we hire, the way we classify them. It's very, very important that you classify them correctly.
Speaker 1:You're also going to want a supervisee payment agreement how the money is going to change hands. Are you bartering supervision for direct hours? Are you going to pay your supervisee and then turn around and ask them for supervision payment? Is it gonna be? You're paying them on the first, they pay you on the 15th? Have something in writing. One of the things I'm going to talk about in my new book coming out is, a couple of years ago, payment, how payment happened, some unfair practices supervisors were doing to their supervisees whom they hired. This was a really big deal in the 2021 sort of rule change in the LPC board here in Texas. So I'm going to talk about that more, especially in October when we get to scary stories. But you really need to make sure you have some kind of a payment agreement.
Speaker 1:If your supervisee is working for you and you plan on paying them and then accepting payment for supervision or bartering or whatever it is you're going to do, you are also going to check here. The supervisee has another site, so if they're not just working for you, they're working someplace else. You're gonna want the list of the site names, addresses, site supervisors and a release of information, an ROI, to speak to those site supervisors. This avoids triangulation, right? This avoids that whole. Well, you know what? I talked to your site supervisor and they said that you were late to work three times last week. Well, that's triangulation, right? At that moment you have gone behind your supervisees back, talked to their site supervisor and now the supervisee feels left out. You're entitled to do that. You're the supervisor. But this document, having an ROI, means you're going to avoid that triangulation and preserve the relationship, right? We want the supervisee to be in a space where they feel safe to share things with you, not a gotcha environment where they're afraid they're gonna get in trouble when they mess up. You're gonna wanna check the box If you have an invoicing system for supervision along with the payment agreement.
Speaker 1:So if you're, let's just say, invoicing them once a month for supervision, make sure you have an agreement on file. Check that box. The HIPAA training certificate right Above, we had that for grad students. Orientation that's, if I'm sorry, orientation is whether they're working for you or not. As I mentioned earlier, the orientation to supervision is part of what I teach to mitigate problems and protect your license, right. Orientation means you're teaching them all the things how you do supervision, how you will evaluate them, how often you meet, how to do the scheduling, all of those things, all the systems, and then evaluate them regularly, formally, and then, if you need to remediate them, have a formal process. And then, of course, if you need to terminate with them before they finish their hours, you'll have all of that documentation Malpractice insurance copy.
Speaker 1:Links to weekly supervision documents, including formal assessments. I used to do that with a drop box, because none of it was confidential, right, this was just log forms, blank templates to take supervision notes. It was. They could download their assessment before I gave it to them. So they knew what I was looking for. They knew what I was gonna assess and what I meant by meets expectations, exceeds expectations, fails to meet expectations right, no secrets. Supervisors are able to download and look at these things, so they know exactly what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Links to the scheduling system right, there has to be a way for these folks to reschedule, just like your clients, and to do it easily, without calling you all the time. And then links to a time tracking system. Now, that could be as simple as a Google spreadsheet, or it could be as fun as a time tracking application, which I hear about all the time. I hear about folks using Time Tracker and Toggle and lots of fun apps out there to track hours and making sure that you're all on the same page and, of course, room for additional notes. I'm going to stop the share, all right. So that was my version of a onboarding checklist for Supervisors, for graduate students and for postgraduate associates. Remember, if you are in one of our Facebook groups, texas Supervisor Coalition I know a few folks have shared their onboarding system and it's really up to you how you want to do it.
Speaker 1:Like, if you're not going to take any grad students, you could download this and just get rid of that whole portion having to do with grad students. If you never plan on hiring, get rid of that portion, right. So this is your supervision practice and I'm going to talk more to supervisors and Supervisor wannabes. I want you guys to feel comfortable taking on the role of clinical supervisor. I don't want to scare you away. I want to help you meet your fears because we need you right. We've got so many underserved areas in Texas rural areas, it's just. It's terrible. And the more supervisors we can get well guess what the more associates we can get out into those underserved areas. So hang in there, and if you're a supervisor curious, I've got something for you coming up in October as well. So that's it for today, and I'm going to look and check one more time to see if I have any questions. Thanks for joining me. This is Dr Kate Walker for your Step it Up Training onboarding checklist for Supervisors. Have a great day.