Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses

85 How to Identify a Bad Supervision Contract and Ensure a Great Supervisory Relationship

• Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor • Season 3 • Episode 85

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Ever felt overwhelmed by the maze of requirements for Texas LPCs? That ends today. Join us as we uncover the secrets to crafting a rock-solid supervision contract that safeguards your professional journey. Our conversation is a treasure trove of knowledge, diving deep into the must-haves of any contract. You'll learn the nuances of setting goals, managing expectations, arranging compensation, and establishing confidentiality—all while adhering to Texas regulations. Whether you're looking for a supervisor or reassessing your current contract, this episode is your guide to a transparent and effective supervisory relationship.

Navigating the supervision landscape requires more than just a good contract—it demands practical know-how. We discuss the essentials of documenting your supervision, sharing strategies for note-taking, and the necessity of contingency plans. Our personal anecdotes shed light on the subtleties of communication, from the magic of texting to handling out-of-hours emergencies. Beyond the paperwork, we emphasize the initiation rites of orientation, ensuring that the contract's terms are translated into daily practice. This episode is brimming with actionable insights that pave the way for a fulfilling supervisory experience, whether you're newly graduated or a seasoned pro.

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.

Speaker 1:

So what exactly makes a bad supervision contract? So you're going to find out in a second and it's going to help you because you know episode 86, I'm going to talk about how to find a great supervisor. Well, a great supervisor will have a great contract. And then episode 87, which is the third in our three-part series, where we're going to talk about how breaking up is hard to do. So if you have a supervisor and maybe you didn't listen to this podcast before because you know it didn't exist yet and you're thinking, oh, my goodness, I'm not really in the best situation here I'm going to walk you through, of course, things to do before you break up with your supervisor and then how to go through the process of the breakup so that no bridges are burned and we're able to all get along with our lives and continue to save the world with excellent therapy.

Speaker 1:

So a bad supervision contract you know, a contract for supervision in Texas is really more of a memorandum of understanding. So it definitely lays out the conditions for supervising. So when we think about, for instance, when we are establishing a relationship with a client, how do we start that relationship? How do we establish that it is now an official counseling relationship. Well, we have a piece of paper that the client must sign and it's a consent for treatment, a consent form, an informed consent there are lots of different names for it. But it's important, especially for the establishment of negligence and liability and all those scary things, because when the client signs that consent for treatment, they're agreeing to certain conditions that you, the therapist, will provide for them, and they're informed, they're going in with their eyes open. So it is the beginning of the counseling relationship. That's when it goes from being any other kind of relationship to being a formal counseling relationship. Well, the contract does the same thing for the supervision relationship. So for the supervisor to then say hey, supervisee, we are now in a supervisory relationship, there are actually two pieces of paper, at least in Texas. So we have the formal state paperwork which I'm not talking about today because it changes all the time, and so you'll be able to download that from the website and take a look at that, not my website, the BHEC website. What I'm talking about today is the second piece of paper, which is the contract that lays out the foundation of the supervisory relationship and it establishes, along with the state mandated paperwork, this establishes the counseling. I'm sorry, scratch that the supervisory relationship.

Speaker 1:

Now let's get down to the meat of this. What does a good supervision contract have to show? Well, you can go to the ACEs best practices and you can see a very, very detailed outline of what a good contract should have in it, so that it establishes the groundwork. But I'm going to talk about a little bit more of an abbreviated version. So here are the bare bones of a good supervision contract. A good supervision contract obviously should have names on it and dates, and so the date it begins, and it should have goals of supervision, expectations for the supervisor, expectations for the supervisee and if you are in a position supervisor where you're able to take payment for supervision services from your supervisee so, in other words, it's not part of your job, you're doing this as a private supervisor practice You're going to want a section of your contract that talks about compensation for supervision and you're going to have a section that talks about confidentiality, because we need that in the supervisory relationship.

Speaker 1:

What you say here stays here, right? We want our supervisees to be open with us, and so we want to make sure we can assure them of confidentiality. With exceptions, you want to make sure there's an emergency contact section, right? So back in the day we might have our landline and our cell phone, and now that nobody has landlines any longer, you're going to want to make sure you have the procedures you want your supervisee to follow in case of an emergency. You're going to want the logistics of supervision, so the where and the when and the how, and then, of course, you're going to want to have okay, under what circumstances can we end this contract? And the spot for signatures. So that's the overview, the really what do they call that? The five mile overview. Now I'm going to give you the 60 foot, I don't know. Anyway, now we're going to take a little bit closer look with our magnifying glass.

Speaker 1:

What makes a terrible section on expectations for the supervisor, expectations for the supervisor. Well, one of the things that you're allowed to have in Texas is an unlimited number of supervisees. So that's for LPC and, I think, lmft. As of this recording, in May 2024, for June 2024, lmft may be changing those rules as well, but right now, lpc supervisors can have as many supervisees as they want. Now, that doesn't mean they should have as many supervisees as they want.

Speaker 1:

So I'm talking to you, new graduate, as you're out there and you're going to interview your new supervisor, you're going to want to ask them okay, how long have you been doing this and how many supervisees do you have? And here's my point. When I teach the 40-hour training to become an LPC or an LMFT supervisor in Texas I teach the developmental model. So that means everybody gets to be a beginner, everybody gets to be kind of that middle phase where we're not sure if this is what we'd like and we're going to have a little push and pull against authority. And then we're going to have level three LPC associates who are ready to go out and be our colleagues and join us in saving the world with excellent therapy. Well, the same thing holds true with a supervisor.

Speaker 1:

So you can imagine if you're going to interview a supervisor and they're brand new and you ask them how many supervisees they have and they're like I have 20. And you're like, ooh gosh, I don't know if that's a good idea. And here's one of the reasons that's not a good idea. With a new supervisor In Texas you must deliver only 50% of supervision hours in a group setting. Okay, so if you've got 20 supervisees, you can't just meet with them one hour a week and call it a group supervision, right, you've got to somehow carve out time for individual supervision for each of those 20 supervisees or somehow do the math. So it's triadic, which in Texas, triadic equals individual supervision. So, yes, I know some amazing supervisors out there who have a ton of supervisees, but guess what? They've been doing supervision for a long, long time and they don't see as many clients anymore. So they have basically taken their private practice and turned it into a supervision practice and it's all they do.

Speaker 1:

So if you're interviewing I'm talking to you again grads If you're interviewing your supervisor and they say, yeah, I've been supervising for like 10 years and I don't really have many clients anymore. So yeah, I have 20 supervisees, then you can ask about scheduling. How do you schedule? How do you make sure that I'm talking in terms of your voice grad? How would I make sure that I get the individual attention from you that I'm going in terms of your voice grad? How would I make sure that I get the individual attention from you that I'm going to need, especially as a level one graduate and brand new counselor? So another thing to look for under expectations for your supervisor is ongoing feedback and not just meeting you and signing off on your notes for your supervision session.

Speaker 1:

Right, I'm talking about a formal evaluation. Now, that may make you kind of shake in your boots and you're like, but Kate, I left evaluations back in my master's degree. Well, let me tell you why getting a formal evaluation is actually a really, really good thing. You remember earlier I talked to you about the developmental model, right? Well, how do you know? You have moved from a level one to a level two, a level two to a level three, right? Is it just because you come in and your supervisor looks at you and says, hey, you look like you're level two today, right, I mean, you don't want that's, no, they're.

Speaker 1:

So what a clear, formal, hold it in your hand kind of paper and pencil evaluation can do for you, or one online, you know, you do you? It can serve as documentation that you are doing an amazing job, right? So you've got this formal evaluation and you're able to look at it and see, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm doing all of these things. Right Now you and your supervisor can be on the same page when you both come together and kind of collaborate and say, hey, look, I think I'm really doing well here. Yeah, I agree, I think you're really doing well. And it can also serve as evidence and I, of course, will talk about this in a couple of episodes if breaking up is what you need to do with your supervisor, if your supervisor is coming at you and saying, hey, you're terrible, I'm terminating you, this is because of your performance or something, and you're like, huh, that doesn't sound right because I have all of these formal evaluations that shows that I was doing an amazing job. Up until the point that somehow we're butting heads here and I'm getting fired. Up until the point that somehow we're butting heads here and I'm getting fired. So much like a job performance review can protect you when you are fired, right, or at least it can help you make a case that you shouldn't have been fired or you were wrongly terminated.

Speaker 1:

You know, make no mistake, the supervisory relationship is not the same as an employment relationship, and I'll talk about that more in a second. But in the clinical supervisory relationship, your supervisor has an obligation to remediate you before they terminate you. And if they have never taught you a skill, if they have never evaluated a skill, and it just comes out of the blue, hey, you know what? You're getting a remediation plan today and if you don't shape up, I'm going to fire you To have those formal documentations in your hand, the formal evaluations in your hands that say, no, you were doing five out of five, you were doing great. Or you may have the opposite right, you're looking at your formal evaluation going oh yeah, I knew I was really struggling identifying my counter-transference session with this type of client. Or, yeah, I can really see I was not doing a great job at reflecting and extending meaning, right? So it's either going to serve to validate that yes, in fact, you needed a remediation plan and you and your supervisor agree on that, or it can help defend you if you are not on the same page with your supervisor who's handing you a remediation plan and possibly terminating you.

Speaker 1:

So what we're doing here, new graduate, is we are really protecting the supervisory relationship, because the contract is the first step in establishing that trust. Right, you got to be able to trust your clinical supervisor because you don't just want to come in and tell them all the rosy, wonderful stuff you've done. You want to go in and be able to process your mistakes, the parts of you that are just not feeling confident, your anxiety over seeing clients. Your first right, your first this or your first that you want to be able to come to your supervisor and trust them to be able to teach you what you need to know and give you an honest evaluation as they are growing you from a level one to a level two to a level three, right, okay. The next thing I want you to look at when you are perusing this supervision contract, new grad, is a section on will, or how will your supervisor go over the rules with you. So in Texas, yeah, your supervisor has to go over the rules with you. So kind of a really good question to ask if you don't see it, or maybe you see it in the contract, but ask your supervisor hey, when was the last rules update? I know that may seem kind of tricky and I want you to go to the BHEC website and find because you can literally find the latest update, but you want a supervisor who's up to date with the latest rules.

Speaker 1:

I mean, we in Texas had some significant changes over the past five years. So one, for example, is that an LPC associate can own their own private practice. Well, if you're interviewing your supervisor and they're saying things like no, you can't have your own private practice. Well, one of two things either that's their how they stand and they don't want you to have a private practice until you've shown some skills, which is fine, that's their prerogative. Or two, they're not aware that the rule has changed. So ask for clarification. Right, we're not trying to be antagonistic here. You could say, hey, you did know the rule changed. And they may say, oh, yeah, yeah, I know the rule changed, I'm just not going to be the one who supervises you. If you decide to open your own practice, great, we're clearing the air right away. You're establishing a good relationship of trust. You know where the other stands. Everybody could be on the same page right from the get-go.

Speaker 1:

Another thing in the supervision contract kind of goes along with the how and the what and the where is supervision notes. So in Texas, your supervisor must keep notes of supervision and you, supervisee, can have a copy of those notes whenever you request it. Now, too often, because we're clinicians, we think, okay, I've got to go through a request process. There are so many days that I can give my supervisor to hand me those notes over. Yeah, no, don't do that. A better solution is supervisee, you take the note, have the note, hand it to your supervisor, say, hey look, did I cover? Did I write down everything you wanted me to talk about? Supervisor signs it scans it in. So the supervisor has a copy. You've got a copy. Everybody goes on their merry way. But I cannot emphasize this enough Get documentation that you met weekly and keep a copy of that.

Speaker 1:

There are so many sad stories of when a supervisor you know something happens and they're not able to release those supervision notes. And the supervisee goes to the board. They say I promise I was with this supervisor for six months. I just don't have any evidence. And because my former supervisor got sick or passed away or something happened, I'm not able to get those notes. Please believe me. And the board really has no recourse right and without the evidence they can't grant you those hours.

Speaker 1:

So in the contract, look for a section that shows what happens to those notes. So, number one it's sort of like in a counseling relationship you want to make sure that there's an establishment or there's sort of contingency plans for what happens to those supervision notes when and if something happens to the supervisor. But even better, look in the contract or ask the question of the supervisor hey, are you okay if I leave every supervision session with a copy of the note? So there's never a question, because the supervisor still has to send in documentation that you completed your hours within 30 days of the termination of supervision. So hopefully that's when you upgrade, right, and you're like all waiting and you're like, oh, am I going to upgrade? Well, your supervisor has 30 days to get that information in to the state and that's also if you decide again. In a couple of episodes I'm going to talk about where this might be the case. If you break up with your supervisor, that broken up with supervisor still has to submit evidence that you had supervision with them within 30 days. So you are going to go the extra mile and make sure you have a copy of these signed documents just in case something happens.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's talk about confidentiality. A bad supervision contract may be missing a section that says, in a nutshell what you say here stays here. Now think about this If you're going to be working at the same agency as your supervisor, right, if you're going to be working at the same place and in Texas, you don't have to. You don't have to have supervision from the same person at your agency. But you know, sometimes the agencies offer free supervision and I know you want to take advantage of that. But there should be a conversation about something in the contract that indicates hey, you're not going to take something I did in here and go talk to my, let's say, my next in the chain of command or my site supervisor. Unless we talk about that, right, we call this triangulation and we want to avoid triangulation, right? Because if you think your supervisor is having water cooler conversations about you at work, that's going to really negatively impact that supervision relationship. So have a conversation about that.

Speaker 1:

I know this is scary stuff. If you're just meeting the supervisor or potential supervisor for the first time and you're worried about having these conversations, it's really, really important that you have them now, before the supervision relationship gets going and you know all the things. So let's talk about availability. This may be something that you I don't know. I know I hear anecdotally about terrible supervisors, and everywhere, not just Texas, but and they're few and far between, believe me, we have amazing supervisors in Texas, but I'm going to talk about the terrible ones, since I'm talking about terrible contracts. I'm talking about the terrible supervisors who only meet their supervisees in group settings or they don't meet at all. So you can imagine working in an agency and everybody's their hairs on fire and they're running like crazy and nobody has time for anything. And there's an emergency and a supervisor just looks at you and says hey, don't worry about it, I'm just going to sign off on your notes today. No, no, no, don't do that.

Speaker 1:

And on the flip, life happens. I mean, if you are an adult, you're going to have a sick day, you're going to have a sick kid, you're going to have circumstances arise where you may need to miss supervision. Well, in Texas, lpcs have to document four hours for every month they see clients. I mean, if it's coming up on week three of your four weeks, right, because every month has four weeks in it, and you're coming up on the last week and you have not accrued four hours, you lose every hour for that month. Like you don't even get to count that month, it's just gone. So, your supervisor here are a couple of danger signs to look out for A supervisor who only has, let's say, one day a week open for supervision, yeah, that's not good because life happens.

Speaker 1:

Or you have a supervisor that it's very difficult to reschedule with them, or it's very complicated. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get back on the supervisor's schedule. Now I'm going to jump on the supervisor side for a minute. If you are the person who late cancels, if you are the person who no-shows, or if you're the person who maybe you give lots and lots of notice but you've kind of made it a habit of not showing up to supervision at the designated time and your supervisor has to reschedule all the time, do not be surprised if your supervisor has consequences for you. So if your supervisor has to reschedule you on, let's say, a Saturday morning at 9 am, you may have to pay for that and I'm talking financially, right. Or if your supervisor has to give away a prime client time to make sure you get your four hours for the month, you may be charged for that right.

Speaker 1:

So when you're looking at the contract and you're looking at a bad supervision contract, you're going to see things like I'm only available Tuesdays at five, that's it. Or you may see something like, yeah, only group supervision. No, no, that's not. That's against the rules. They're not even supposed to be doing that right? So make sure in your good supervision contract that there is a section about scheduling and rescheduling and consequences are spelled out clearly for late cancels and no-shows.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now let's talk about those wonderful unicorn supervisors who are agreeing to hire you, right? I love it when supervisors do that and I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of 1099 versus W2. There's a great podcast episode in Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses where I go through the difference between 1099 and W-2 and making sure that you're classified correctly. So this is about the contract versus your employment contract. Now you may remember about 15 minutes ago I said hey, look, your employment is different from your clinical supervision. So in other words, in clinical rules, clinical supervision rules it says your supervisor must remediate you before they terminate you. That's just one example. So there are a lot of differences.

Speaker 1:

So if you start seeing elements of employment in the supervision contract, that's a red flag, right? Employment issues should be in a separate document, like where you got to park, how your, if your shirt has to be tucked in when you see clients, your split, how you're paid, all of those things, how your taxes are taken out. If you're working for a supervisor and they include employment things in the supervision contract, that's not a deal breaker, I mean the supervisor their heart's in the right place. They just may have not taken a Kate Walker training course, and that's all right. But they need to make sure they separate those two elements because it's a dual relationship. If they're going to be your boss and your clinical supervisor, they need to divide those roles for you and for themselves. And the easiest way to do that is to create two different documents. So supervision contract, clinical stuff, employment contract, clinical stuff, employment contract, employment stuff.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's talk about sites. So in Texas there is no rule about the number of sites, no rule about the number of sites you, my new LPC graduate or my new counseling graduate, can have. So you can start off at a site and then you can decide, ooh, this site is terrible, I need to do site and you can change, as long as you have your supervisor's permission right, because your supervisor has to keep track of those sites. In fact, I also I encourage supervisors to make site visits. So look for a section in the contract that describes how many sites you can have. Or you know, you may have a supervisor that just as a level one, they only want to see you at one site.

Speaker 1:

Or I know, when I had my nonprofit Ann's Place, I wanted my supervisees to donate 12 hours a month. 12, that's three hours a week. Right, I wanted them to donate those hours to Ann's Place in exchange for free supervision. But I wanted them to have a real job someplace else where they were accruing real hours with other diagnoses you don't normally see in a private practice. So that was in my contract and you would see this in your contract under the section called Sites. And if it's not there, that's okay. This is a good question to ask your potential supervisor how many sites can I have? Are you going to come do site visits? How are we going to track these, please?

Speaker 1:

Last but not least, you want to make sure, especially if you're getting supervision from a supervisor in private practice, they're not doing it as part of their job. You want to see clearly what you're being charged for supervision. Now, if you are also working for your supervisor, you want to see if those supervision fees are coming out of what you earn or if you're going to be charged on top of everything else. Make it very, very clear at the beginning or make sure that you see that clearly in the contract what you're going to be charged for supervision and y'all. Cheaper is not always better, especially if you're coming to a supervisor with a particular specialty, or you're going to be going to a supervisor because they're agreeing to mentor you in private practice, or perhaps you're going to a supervisor who has a ton of flexibility, right? So there are things that you will get from supervision that you're going to have to pay for.

Speaker 1:

Last but not least, I want to touch on the emergency contact and the emergency procedures. Now, in your contract, I don't expect you to see detailed information of how your supervisor wants you to contact them in case of emergency, but as a level one supervisee right, that's you, new graduate you want to be able to contact your supervisor outside of regular supervision. So are they going to charge you for that extra contact? Are they going to include it in your fee? How do they want you to do that? Right, I've had some contracts that I've read where the supervisor they don't want you to text them. They want you to call them. Well, I know, when I was a supervisor, that didn't work for me because I don't answer my to text them. They want you to call them. Well, I know, when I was a supervisor, that didn't work for me because I don't answer my phone and 90% of the time I'm on, you know, I've got my ringer off. So I wanted a text and I would teach my supervisees in the orientation exactly what constituted an emergency.

Speaker 1:

So I'm talking about the orientation now, because a lot of supervisors they think the contract is kind of the end of the story and then all we're just going to start meeting. A good supervisor is going to be sure to give you an orientation and that orientation might be hours long, but you're going to go through the contract. You're going to fill in all the gaps and the grayness in this contract, because there are lots and lots of questions you're gonna have about. Okay, I see that we agreed to this, but what exactly does that look like? Can you show me an evaluation, new supervisor? Can you show me a remediation plan? Can you help me understand how to work the scheduling system if I need to miss? So the orientation is a way a really good supervisor is going to set you actually it's going to set both of you up for success. Thank you.