What it is and when to seek it
I have held clinical leadership positions at community mental health agencies and justice reform non-profits and I have consulted with nonprofits to support them in effectively building and managing clinical, grant-based programs and to directly support their clinical staff. I bring my years of experience with individual and group clinical supervision and providing post-licensure consultation to case managers, therapists, and managers.
My orientation is person-centered, strengths-based, and trauma- and systems- informed. I use an integrated supervision framework called Bernard’s Discrimination Model of Supervision, which takes into account the clinician’s stage of development and skill with a treatment modality and case conceptualization and self awareness. I am also a certified compassion fatigue professional and bring this into supervision and consultation.
Supervision
Good clinical supervision should provide the following:
- Support
- Learning opportunities
- Ongoing feedback from the supervisor on your clinical skill and documentation
- Openings for feedback from the supervisee to supervisor
- Exploration of identities and intersectionality to build self awareness of biases and support clients
- Exploration of your learning style so that the supervisor is supporting you individually
How you know whether you’ve found the right supervisor is an incredibly personal decision. What works for me may not work for you – it’s as personal a decision as finding the right therapist, because you are putting your trust in someone to help you explore and challenge your biases and support your growth as a therapist/social worker/addiction counselor/mental health counselor.
There is an inherent power imbalance between supervisee and their clinical supervisor, and this is exacerbated when the supervisor is also responsible for the supervisee’s employment and/or ability to become licensed. This should be addressed in supervision more than once and the supervisor needs to be transparent about expectations for clinical hours and/or job expectations.
Reach out to me for clinical supervision.
Consultation
Consultation occurs between two professionals who have approximately the same level of expertise, licensure, and/or experience.
We all need ongoing consultation to receive feedback on the modalities and interventions we’re using, our clinical skill, and to explore biases and blind spots with someone who provides a space where we can be brave enough to do so honestly.
When you’re a new clinical supervisor, you may need support identifying a model of supervision that speaks to you. Perhaps you need support drafting your consent to clinical supervision or you’re needing consultation to prepare to give a supervisee feedback on their clinical approach.
Perhaps you are a manager noticing that particular groups of staff are more likely to experience burnout and compassion fatigue in your workplace. Maybe you’re in a nonprofit struggling to retain quality staff. Compassion fatigue and burnout need to be addressed at the organizational level. There are steps managers and agencies can take to change their work cultures.
I offer consultation to managers and agencies so support with creating a culturally aware, trauma-informed environment for staff and people in services.
EMDR Consultation
I am an EMDRIA-Approved EMDR therapist and Consultant-In-Training (CIT) and can offer up to 15 of the required 20 hours of consultation towards your EMDR Certification after your basic training is completed. Consultation focuses on supporting your technique through the 8 phases and 3 prongs of EMDR therapy and your understanding of the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) Model. In addition to my experience as an EMDR therapist, I bring my experience as a clinician and supervisor who has worked in many different settings, understanding of systems and social determinants of health, compassion fatigue certification, specialty in perinatal mental health, and advanced EMDR training in utilizing IFS with EMDR, treating addictive processes, and protocols for dissociation to our consultation.