Clinical Supervision Handbook - CAMH Knowledge Exchange ...

Core Competencies in Clinical Supervision
article as an appendix, p. 38.) Both clinical supervisors and clinical supervision
groups could use this tool to periodically assess progress in diversity competence,
and to stimulate discussion about areas for professional and personal growth.
The questionnaire addressed comfort with diversity; awareness of issues of power,
control and interpersonal conflict; and knowledge about oppressed groups. The
added open-ended reflecting questions included:
• highlights in practitioners’ diversity training experiences
• peak enjoyable or disturbing experiences (or both) in diversity training
• an idea or skill supervisors could use with supervisees
• how supervisors’ insights (facilitated by their responses to previous questions)
could contribute to their effectiveness in supervision
• actions that supervisors could take to enhance the cultural competence in their
agency or program. (Armour et al., 2004, p. 34)
The study showed significant gains in diversity awareness in the period between the
end of the training and follow-up. Clinical supervisors also noted areas for further
development in improving supervision practice, including normalizing discomfort,
awareness of retreating from exploring diversity, and permission to address “socially
taboo” topics.
Divac and Heaphy (2005) suggest that ongoing feedback and reflection in supervision
of supervision sessions is an important formative evaluation strategy for diversity
competence. They also suggest that semi-structured interviews with trainee supervisors
should be carried out at the end of the academic year. (The content of the interviews
was not yet developed by the authors at the time of publication of their article.)
Divac and Heaphy describe the content and format of monthly sessions for clinical
supervisors, where the specific focus was on fostering diversity competence. This
approach may be of particular relevance to the professional development of clinical
supervisors due to its richness in process and experiential emphasis. In this model,
trainee supervisors meet one day per month to discuss key issues, skills and abilities
in cross-cultural practice. Divac and Heaphy note that the main focus is on the
process and experience of engaging with subjective assumptions, biases and experience
related to their own and others’ cultures. In addition, trainees use the group format
to reflect on diverse aspects of their identities, which may be privileged in some
contexts and disadvantaged in others. Finally, group sessions are videotaped and
reviewed to encourage continued reflection and exploration of issues.
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