198 Grads: Is Your Supervision Actually Working?

If you are sitting in supervision every week thinking, Something about this does not feel right, this episode is for you.

New associates are expected to enter supervision and somehow know what a good supervision experience should look like. But if this is your first supervisor, how would you know whether the lack of structure, missing evaluations, or disorganized paperwork is normal?

In this episode, Ashley Stephens Durbin and I walk through the signs that supervision may be coasting. Ashley shares what "no structure to be found" can actually look like, along with an early-career evaluation experience that delivered difficult feedback without giving her a plan for growth. I also talk about why disorganized supervision becomes a bigger problem when you are facing a real clinical mistake or emergency.

Most importantly, we talk about what you can do next. You are not powerless just because someone is signing your hours.

In this episode, we cover:

• How to tell the difference between a relaxed supervision style and supervision with no meaningful structure
• Why evaluation, documentation, and case follow-up should be part of your supervision process
• How to decide whether you trust your supervisor enough to call when something goes wrong clinically
• When to have the difficult conversation, find a mentor, interview someone new, or change supervisors

Good supervision should help you grow into a clinician who can think, evaluate, document, and make sound decisions. It should not leave you wondering whether you are wasting another supervision hour talking about absolutely nothing.

I know the difficult-conversation piece personally. Changing my first supervision situation required one of the hardest professional conversations I had experienced at that point in my life, but it also taught me the power of self-advocacy.

Your supervision experience helps shape the clinician you are becoming. Pay attention when the warning flags show up.

Want to learn more? Check out this month’s free resource from Kate Walker Training.

If this episode made you rethink how you structure supervision, evaluate supervisees, document progress, or respond when things go wrong clinically, join us inside the Step It Up Membership. We go deeper into the systems, ethics, and documentation practices that help supervisors build supervision relationships that are organized, defensible, and supportive.

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. 

Transcript

A Bad Evaluation Story

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So when I'm having this really raw and kind of horrified experience, and like I don't even know what I'm doing. Apparently, I'm not a very good social worker. I'm not doing what I should if everyone thinks I suck real bad. And then never using it as a like developmental opportunity, never using it to form goals or a plan about how it was going to improve. And then it was just kind of like I don't know. It was like we went skydiving, and then my like tandem person was like, You're on your own, have fun, goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Welcome to the MS Therapist, building practices of the money. Number Numbers, Dr. Kate Welcome, over necklaces to break. If you're a newer grad, supervision can start to feel like something that just happens to you. You know, you show up, you talk through your cases, your hours get signed off, and the weeks roll by. But good supervision is supposed to be doing so much more than that. It should be sharpening your clinical judgment, protecting your clients, and genuinely getting you ready to practice on your own one day. So here's a question worth asking. Is your supervision actually working? Today we'll get into how to tell, what it should feel like when it's going well, and what to do if yours has stopped pulling its weight. Now let's get to work.

What Supervision Should Do

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Hey, I'm Dr. Kate Walker. Welcome to the podcast this week. And uh this week, Ashley and I are going to talk about. Well, we're talking to you grads because you're starting your supervision experience. It's going to be the first time you've started the supervision experience that no one was really making you do. This is a voluntary thing you do in order to accrue ours so that you can upgrade your license. But before we jump into that, first a little bit about us. My name is Kate Walker. I'm an LPC LMFT supervisor in Texas.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And Ashley, you are hi, Ashley Durbin. I am an LCSW supervisor for the social work side and here in Texas, but also licensed in, I don't know, eight or something states at this point. So many states. And too many.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

We teach the course to become a supervisor. And we teach it in Texas, we teach it all over the country, and we teach it completely online. And so we research a lot of states and a lot of rules. And so what I hope and what Ashley hopes you get out of today, if you're listening to this and you're a grad student, or if you're listening to this and you know you will be a grad student, sorry, postgrad seeking supervision, you'll have a few questions to ask. And if you are sitting in supervision every week and you're thinking, this is terrible. Why is this terrible? Am I supposed to be feeling this way? I hope you get a little validation after this episode and maybe some empowerment to go make some changes because you're not powerless in this situation. There are things you

The No Structure Problem

SPEAKER_01 3:16

can do. But before you get there, Ashley, what are some things, uh postgrad associate or intern or whatever they're called in your state, what are some things that they might be noticing if they're sitting in supervision that might be lacking?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah. So I think for me, the biggest thing is probably going to be like no structure to be found. Some of our supervisees, associates, whatever you call them, there is different personal preferences, right? You have a type A, you have type B or type Z. This is not that. This isn't like I just would prefer a lot more structure. This is, I don't know what I'm doing here. We're just sitting here, we're shooting the the the breeze. Um, there's no real plan. I go week to week and have things to to think about and things to say, but we never really get to it. Or we start talking about what's in the news or drama or whatever else. It's just this kind of fly by your seat, and you don't have any sort of structure as well in the paperwork, in the like the organization of what we're both doing here. It's just kind of like, call me if you need me, we'll get to it. That kind of lackadaisical, that's not what we want.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

No, no, and I hear these stories too, especially if you have a lot of group supervision in your state. In Texas, you're only allowed to have pretty much half and half for the most part. But I'll have associates talk to me about, well, we had another supervision hour and talked about absolutely nothing, or the same person monopolized the entire supervision time and they didn't even talk about their cases. They're following that new Instagram where somebody's talking about, you know, Gray's Anatomy and Couple Counseling, or, you know, I mean, which don't get me wrong, that's I I like that Instagram myself, but it's not to be covered every single time. But as a supervisee, I mean, how would you know that? I mean, I actually wonder, you know, how many times this even gets covered in grad programs where they're teaching them, okay, here's what needs to happen in supervision.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, I would say probably never. And this is one of those, like you can be the sharpest, quickest, most advanced supervisee. You still don't know what you don't know. And especially if you've only got the one supervisor, you've never had anyone before at a different job, whatever. And maybe even you're young to the field and have never really had a mentor of any variety. You may truly not know and think, well, it's better than nothing. And their experience, they've been in the field, they know what they're doing. And yes, hopefully that is the case. But also, you know, we all have different ways that we've come to this. Some people more advanced than others, some more experienced than others. And honestly, having been licensed in so many different states, some states just don't require big long courses for people to become supervisors. So they just either went through a course that was short and sweet and didn't really teach them much, or didn't go through any

How Supervisors Get Trained

SPEAKER_00 6:30

at all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

And we just did an episode on this, or we've been talking about this on a couple of episodes because it's concerning. I mean, I want potential course takers to be like buyer beware. Like it's too much money to just pull the trigger on a supervisor training and say, okay, this is this is what I'm getting. I just have to suck it up and go with it. You've got to do your homework ahead of time. And we we talked in that other episode about what to look for in a good supervisor training. And I know in Texas, one of the big red flags with the supervisor training that's taught online is if you cannot determine who is speaking during the instruction. And I know that sounds so weird, right? Because it, you know, you might be an instructor who's like, I don't want to show my face. You know how many rules Ashley and I look at where it's specifically stated the course must be taught by a licensed this whatever with this designation in this state. Like it is specific. There's no wiggle room. And without the the ability to at least verify with your face that you are the one teaching the course, you're you could be breaking the rules. It's really important that you do your homework before you take a supervisor training. And if you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, I just took a terrible supervisor training and I don't know what to do, that's it's okay. I mean, we've all made purchases that we we later we won't regret, and it's okay. And there, there, there is recourse. But for you graduates who are thinking, well, I don't even know what to ask a supervisor. Well, there you go. That's a question. Where did you take your training? Did you have to have training? I don't know. Ashley, I maybe maybe they could even ask, like, how long did your training have to be?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I'm because that's yeah, absolutely. And and it's such one of these things that I feel like um it's a very odd thing to me to be in the helping profession and then want to hide behind a Zoom screen or you know, hide from social media or whatever else. Like, just like with your private practice, your the ability that you're a real human, the ability that you have a face, an opinion, lived experience is really important. So I think that's one of the things that Kate, you and I really talk a lot about in like every one of the podcasts. Anytime you talk to us, we're gonna tell you hopefully some amazing stories, but also some horror stories, things that we've been through so that we can prepare you for whatever it is, whether that's okay, I need a breakup with my supervisor because I don't think I'm getting what I'm needing and move to someone else. How do I do that? And how do I make sure it's a good fit? All the way up to supervisors and making sure that they're doing what they should. And that's one of those things of like having someone who can tell you their experience, what they've been through, the mistakes that they've made is important. So maybe that's another one of these. Like, what I wouldn't want to see is this person who acts like they're perfect, who has never made a mistake and is telling you how to do things, not like curious or open about it, but telling you to do things that just like do what I say. This is A, B, and C. Go do it. Bye. You know, it's just not how we relate to humans. And it's why AI will never be able to take over our jobs and is certainly not welcome in the supervision space. You know, we all love Claude and or whoever you talk to, whatever. But like your supervisor needs to be a real person and a human in this space where you're connecting with them because it's a very vulnerable situation when you're in supervision and you want to be able to trust them and know that they're they are operating out of their own mistakes, their own lived experience too.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah. And if your supervisor, you know, took one of these AI-generated courses, and I'm just like Ashley, I am in a love-hate relationship with AI, you know, I and I love Claude, I love ChatGPT, I love Gemini. And at the same time, I am really, really concerned if they're just spitting out these courses, because like I said, and like Ashley saying the horror stories are coming in, some signs your supervision might be coasting, and I wrote these

Red Flags You Should Not Ignore

SPEAKER_01 11:02

down. Every session is the same case presentation with no structure. So we talked about that. If every single supervision session feels the same, if you dread your supervision, if it just seems boring, and I'm not talking about at the end, right? We talk about level three folks, and you guys are almost there. You are so close to the end. And it's pretty normal to feel like, okay, I don't know what really what I can learn from this person anymore. Well, you have some obligations there too, and we'll talk about that in a second. Another sign is you've never seen a formal evaluation instrument, right? That is terrifying. And if you aren't terrified, I'll be terrified for you, supervisees. Because if your supervisor does get upset with you or you do make a mistake, and out of the blue, it's like bam, you get a remediation plan, or maybe your supervisor wants to fire you and you're like, ah, I don't know what I did. Hold on. This is the first time we've talked about that, then that's that's a problem. And it leads to my next comment, which is if your supervisor is disorganized, it leaves all of the record keeping to you. You have to keep all of the notes, you have to keep all of the logs. I mean, don't get me wrong, we're gonna talk about that in a minute. You have an obligation to make sure you have copies, but your supervisor has the job of keeping staying organized because that leads to my next one. You may be doubting if your supervisor could even handle a clinical error that you make. Okay, because you're gonna make a clinical error. We all have as uh new associates and new professionals, heck, we still do. We gotta have people we can lean on. So if you're thinking to yourself, my gosh, my supervisor, they can't even stay organized. I don't know what they do if I contacted them with an actual emergency. So I don't know, Ashley. I mean, those horror stories, I mean, here's another one that just came to me. You know, we talk in our course about, you know, supervisees in Texas who went to the board and they spoke in public comment about having to handhold their supervisor about multicultural issues. You know, the the supervisor just kind of playing down and saying, well, you know, I'm not an expert, but you seem to be by whatever appearance they gave or whatever was in their bio. Why don't you walk the class through that? You know, and it's like, oh my gosh, this poor supervisee, thinking they've got the burden of representing an entire culture for the purpose of their own learning experience and supervision. I don't know. Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yes, yeah, and there's there's so many things. I mean, you know, and I've talked a little bit about this before too, but just a note on like evaluation. I had someone who evaluated me one time very early on. I was about maybe a year into the process, and it was a 360-degree evaluation, which is a pretty Mondo one to be throwing out there that that early in a career. But it was not good news. It was really not good news, and that's on like, you know, five point liker. A three is neither agree nor disagree. You're not doing good at a three, even though three fifths sounds like you're you're doing great. It is not. But I had this evaluation, and then it was just like we never talked about it again. So I'm having this really raw and kind of horrified experience, and like I don't even know what I'm doing. Apparently, I'm not a very good social worker. I'm not doing what I should if everyone thinks I suck real bad. And then never using it as a like developmental opportunity, never using it to form goals or a plan about how it was going to improve. And then it was just kind of like I don't know, it was like we went skydiving, and then my like tandem person was like, You're on your own, have fun, goodbye. Hope the hope the crash landing doesn't suck too bad. So, like, those are the kinds of things we hear, you know, some of these horror stories in in groups and individual. And it is that like you will probably hear them as supervisees. I think a lot of y'all talk too. And that's also one of those things. If you do have a good supervisor who feels really solid clinically, tell, tell people, post about it on Facebook, you know, get in these groups and say, does anyone have a supervisor? Whatever. You know, I think that's sometimes it's like a well-known secret that never gets out when you actually have someone who's doing this work. And this is a Ashley opinion, uh, a thousand percent. But one of the things that I think takes this over the top is a supervisor who has dedicated time and energy for supervision rather than somebody who's just phoning it in or who's voluntoled from work who actually doesn't have any heart to do this work. They're just doing it for a side gig or because somebody at work told them to. And I think you can really tell the difference.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Let me pause here for a second. If this episode has you thinking about everything you'd love to have squared away before September, we made something that should help. Our free download this month is the Before the Rush self-audit worksheet. It walks you through your caseload, your supervision, your paperwork, and your boundaries, and it helps you land on one or two concrete things to actually finish before fall arrives. It's free. It takes about 15 minutes, and you can grab it at KateWalkertraining.comslash bonus. Yeah, and and we talk about supervision as a side hustle. I mean, I believe in that. I think it's a great way to add income. But on the other hand, if somebody's doing this just for the money and they are not putting in what they need to to help you feel safe, to feel cared for, to feel like you are supported and evaluated and you know, organized and uh, you know, empowered, that's not okay. And yeah, any of that is making you go, oh my gosh, that's me, that's my situation, then yeah, we wanna we want to give you some some things you can do. We really do want to empower you. You are you're not powerless, not in the age of virtual, right? I mean, maybe I don't know, before COVID when the rules were you have to have face-to-face supervision within the same geography or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Nobody can't it's so like and some states still do that. Some states are you're still hamstrung by having to meet individually a certain number of times or whatever else. And it's just so, you know, that's the one thing about Texas. We're big, we're broad, you know. Thankfully, we've gone virtual a really long time ago, and we're gonna stick that out because it is so important.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yeah, you have to have choices, even those of you listening to me in rural communities who feel like you have no choice, or you are strapped for cash and you're like, but Kate Nashley, I have to stick with this person because they're free. Yeah, I at the end of this, I want you to shop. I want you to shop for a supervisor like you would shop for any other service that's important to you. They are out there, there are people out there that can help you in your price range. You're just gonna have to look.

What You Control As Supervisee

SPEAKER_01 18:42

But, and what are you responsible for? So if you are in a situation and you feel stuck and your supervisor is just kind of phoning it in. And for those of you listening, I made air quotes, right? It's just this idea that they're coasting. You must, supervisees, show up prepared. Okay, if your supervisor is disorganized, then I need you to be organized. I need you to have your log ship shape, your sites organized. I want you to bring notes to every session. And I want you to make sure your supervisor talks about the rules in your state. Because if something goes sideways and somebody has to pull that note, I want them to be able to look at the note of your supervision session with your supervisor. And it shows yes, you covered Rule 681.45 that covered limits of confidentiality with your client. Okay. Because if your supervisor is not going to take care of you, you staying organized, that will that will help take care of you.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Especially if your supervisor isn't with you at work. Like if it's somebody who works where you work and they can kind of tell what hours you're there, what hours you're seeing clients, great. But for all of those external supervisions of like my my supervisor doesn't work where I work, keeping just such good track of your hours and what you're doing, how many cases you have, what the issues are with them, and making sure that you're bringing those things up week over week over week. I think it's funny because I have one of those memories where people are like, Do you remember the case about blah, blah? And I'm like, I don't know, tell me a little bit more. And they say it. I'm like, oh yeah. And his brother was this, and her sister did this thing. You know, it was like, I just have that memory for the cases, but follow up with them. I tried this intervention. This is how it went. Here's what I plan to do next. I think sometimes we have like case study, you get some feedback from a supervisor and then you like never bring it up again. And it there's just this like dangling Chad, if people are old enough to remember what that is in reference to. Um, but there's just this like you never really close the loop on what happened with each individual case. So keeping really good notes on what you're doing, how you're doing it, what you're trying out, any new modalities or interventions or whatever you're trying, I think is so vitally important because your supervisor almost won't know to ask if they're not right there with you doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

So keep good notes. If your supervisor insists on taking the note and keeping the note, then you keep a copy. Take and keep a copy of every single note, every signed hours log. Make sure you have that. And here's the thing in in most states, well, okay, so there's a couple of things I want you to know, supervisees. I could read the list of how many hours of a supervisor training course your state requires. But imagine this let's say it goes from three hours to 45 hours. Okay. That's a Huge difference. So imagine in your state, your supervisor only had to take a course in like one ethics hour, one multicultural hour, and one note keeping hour. But in another state, they had to take 12 hours of ethics and 12 hours of paperwork and roles and rules and all of the organizational things and 12 more hours of multicultural and legal and ethical issues. Who do you think is going to be better trained? Okay. I mean, that's just that just makes

Switching Supervisors Or Finding Mentors

SPEAKER_01 22:36

sense. If you are with a supervisor who is deficient and you know you have to stay with supervisors in your state, fire them. I know that's so scary to think about firing your supervisor. Or I mean it's like I just it's like going on a date though and kind of looking over your date shoulder and thinking, ooh, that person over there is kind of cute. I love it. You can do this.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yes. And I think to me, just like maybe this reframe helps people better a bad supervisor for a short amount of time than your entire clinical lens being framed by someone who actually wasn't great for you style-wise or just didn't have what it is. You know, this is like often the way that you look at your profession, like from here on, it can color all of it. And so I just think about like if I I used mentors because I had not the best supervision experiences, um, but having people that are just in your corner are well informed, keep you out of trouble, tell you what rules are what get you involved with the process of rulemaking, all of that, that is going to color your lens kind of for good. And so better to go through a little bit of a hard breakup with your supervisor than keep someone for potentially years that is not giving you what you need. Yeah. That's that's that's real talk right there.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

That it's and I, you know, it just dawned on me though. Okay, let's say you are in a situation where you cannot dump your supervisor. Well, then get a mentor. Surely there is someone at your job or at one of your colleagues, perhaps has someone they work with, or you can get into a consultation group that meets once a month. Get into a situation where, okay, you've got this supervisor that you have to have to sign on your hours, but they're terrible at mentoring you. Get someone who can mentor you. And I hate to say that because I'm a supervisor and I want all the supervisors to rise to the occasion. But you know what? It it it is what it is, I guess, sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah. Yeah. And none of it, I mean, I'm just this kind of person anyway, but like I would much rather do a little bit of a hard thing, you know, maybe it's one or two awkward conversations and whatever else, to then like have some joy and some light and some fun and all of those kinds of things than just stay miserable. And many people just choose to stay miserable. And I think that's such a good point, Kate. About like, if this is free and you don't have that many other options, maybe asking around and seeing if there is someone else in your workspace who can tackle this. And that's one of the things that we do is we try and tell some of these group practices and hospital systems and whatever else, like more supervisors, more options is always a good thing. So having one person that is in charge of doing it all is also gonna burn them out and it's gonna make them maybe a little not pleasant to be around, especially if their heart isn't into this. So yeah, it's just like think about your options. I love, love the idea of a mentor. And you know, that's something we have a lot of communities. You know, Kate's, I'm gonna mess it up. Badass businesses. So many words, so many badass words. But like go on Facebook, get into some of our groups where there's people learning how to be supervisors and get invested and engaged in the supervision process and see what there is out there for you. I think sometimes we think that this is a huge expense and it's all, you know, and any expense is a lot right now. But I think sometimes you can find it a little cheaper than you were imagining to.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah. So to put it in a box with a bow, if any of this resonates with you, if you know you're sitting with a supervisor who is just not what you need. And I mean, uh Ashley talked about her experience. If you've listened to me, you know, my very first supervisor just basically told us about all the marvelous trips he went on while he charged it for an office none of us could use because that anyway, so many problems. And yes, calling and and having that conversation was probably one of the hardest things I had ever done up to that point in my grown-up life. But it was such a milestone. And I grew from that because I felt the power of self-advocacy in that. I really understood, wow, I'm sticking up for myself. So I want you to hear that. And whether you choose to have the conversation or do the, no, I'm gonna keep them and have a mentor on the side, you know, you do you. Just know, yes, the warning flags, they are there. And good supervision, they you will be evaluated. You will have an organized supervisor, you will have structure, you will have case consultation. Yes, you'll have times when people just want to discuss the latest grays and anatomy, and that's okay. But you're going to have supervision that leaves you feeling like, hey, I'm growing from this. And if I get in trouble and I need someone to call, and I can trust their judgment, I can trust their input, it's going to be a good experience to reach out and ask for help from this person. So I hope you're there. And go back and listen to this episode again so that you know what to ask when you're interviewing for your next supervisor. Or if you're a grad student, you know what to ask them.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Any part words, Ashley? No, you deserve you deserve a good time. You deserve uh supervision that serves you.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah, this is your career. Do it. Does it do the hard thing? All right. Love it. Everybody, take care. And that's where we'll leave it

One Small Next Step

SPEAKER_01 29:01

this week. If any of this landed for you, do one small thing before you close the laptop. And if you'd like a guided way to work through it, you can grab the Before the Rush self-audit worksheet at KateWalkertraining.com slash bonus. See you next week. If you loved today's episode, be sure to leave a five-star review. It helps other badass therapists find the show and build practices that provide. Big thanks to Ridgley Walker for our original fun facts and podcast intro, and to Carl Diamella for editing this episode and making us sound amazing. See you next week.