Supervision Services | Appletree Website

Clinical Supervision

Supervision is a process that assists the development of the professional competence of the clinicians or practitioners within the counselling practice. Clinical supervision guides the clinicians and practitioners to protect the best interest of their clients while safeguarding themselves from getting sued by clients for malpractice.

As part of the best practice clinicians like counsellors, psychotherapists and practitioners are expected to receive regular clinical supervision from a registered clinical supervisor as part of the professional development and professional conduct to ensure their duty of care towards the clients which is recommended by the ethical guidelines under the Singapore Association for Counselling.

ATC aims to be the launch-pad for Interns and counsellors-in-training from any SAC endorsed Masters in Counselling programme. We are heartened and encouraged by the community’s para-counsellors and seasoned practitioners reaching out to us to seek personal therapy as part of their professional development for their personal growth.

ATC clinical supervisors are registered as Master Clinical members with SAC and they have been providing individual and group supervision for counsellors from MOE, International school, Community Based funded and non-funded Counselling Centres and Corporate Organisations. Clinical supervision guides the clinicians and practitioners to protect the best interest of their clients while safeguarding themselves from getting sued by clients.

This is as part of ATC’s effort to train and build organisational team's clinical competencies that are aligned to the organization’s preferred modality based on their targeted clientele’s service needs. The scoped-up mode of group supervision encourages the organization’s team to formulate evident based assessments using specific modalities which facilitates effective interventions techniques to benefits the client outcomes.

At AppleTree Counselling (ATC), we provide individual and group supervision. The mode of individual and group supervision can be in-person or via zoom subject to the practitioners preference and convenience.

Get in touch to find out about our online corporate / individual and group supervision rates at ATC and or the community.

What is Clinical Supervision:

Clinical Supervision is aimed at creating a safe professional relationship between a trained & experienced clinical supervisor and a practitioner or a trainee counsellor.

The supervisor’s primary role is to guide the practitioners or the trainee counsellor to develop and enhance their clinical competencies through mentoring. Such guidance ensures that unconditional care is provided to the clients as stated under the SAC’s ethical guidelines. All practitioners and trainee counsellors must adhere to the legal and the ethical boundaries of the counselling profession.

Key objective of clinical supervision is to ensure that the practitioners and trainee counsellors are fully aware about safeguarding methods for high-risk cases. With adequate clinical supervision practitioners / trainee counsellors are better equipped to manage their own cultural biases, blind-spots, transference and countertransference.

On-going clinical supervision and professional development allows practitioners / trainee counsellors to be more confident as they demonstrate professionalism. They become more mindful towards the professional ethical standards when it comes to protecting the well-being of the clients, under their care.

Besides this, clinical supervision is the simplest method of self-care for practitioners and private practitioners getting burn-out which results in ineffective service delivery, work fatigue and feeling demoralised.

ROLE OF THE SUPERVISOR:

The Clinical supervisor’s role is multifaceted. Three major roles of a clinical supervisor are:

Clinical Supervision: Facilitates & Strategies the learning needs of the supervisee.
Supportive Supervision: Shaping & Supporting the supervisee’s behaviour.
Evaluative Supervision: Objective evaluation of the supervisee’s performance.

1. Clinical Supervision:

An effective clinical supervisor does not just instruct the supervisee. Rather the clinical supervisor will take on the role of teaching the supervisee through example and modelling of the clinical competencies by;

Evaluating the clinical interactions of the supervisee in all situations and capacities.
Identifying and reinforce effective actions than can be taken by the supervisee.
Teaching and demonstrating various counselling techniques and how to track significant events in the counselling process.
Explaining the rationale of strategies and interventions implemented.
Constructively challenge the supervisee to enhance the supervisee’s learning.

2. Supportive Supervision:

Clinical supervision is a valuable source of support and encouragement for practitioners. In the supportive role the supervisor facilitate the supervisee’s growth through the following methods:

Assist the supervisee to recognising his/her personal/professional limitations in order to protect the welfare of both the client and supervisee.
Interact in a manner that facilitates the supervisee in the process of self-exploration, problem solving and confidence building.
Support the supervisee’s wellbeing by allowing the supervisee to manage stressful events, role ambiguity, career development and skill usage, in a patient manner.
In the event, if the supervisor observes that the supervisee’s personal issues are interfering with the supervisees counselling process that my potentially jeopardize the client’s well-being the supervisor must encourage the supervisee to seek personal therapy immediately.

3. Evaluative Supervision:

Supervisors must have the ability to evaluate and give constructive feedback to the supervise about his/her progressive clinical skills in the role of an administrators, evaluator, or examiner in the following aspects;

Assess the practitioner’s skills & approach towards the psychotherapeutic process toward the client, in an agency or in the community setting
Assess the supervisee’s performance standards based on the professional, ethical and legal guidelines of the profession.
Negotiate the supervisee's objectives for supervision while understanding the learning style, modality preference & the various processes established in the supervisee’s work environment for a better evaluation process.
Adopting objective evaluation strategies when giving feedback to the supervisee about his/her performance / skills deficits.

Other Responsibilities of a clinical supervisor are:

Ensuring that the venue for supervision is conducive for learning.
Mutually agree on the availability of the supervisor and supervisee’s.
Commitment to the learning of the supervisee through clinical supervision.
Maintain Confidentiality at all times to protect all clients / organization.
Highlight the importance of maintaining client record to protect self and clients.
Accountability as a clinical supervisor to give on-going feedback to create awareness about supervisor or supervisee’s knowledge limitations for safe clinical practice.

During clinical supervision the clinicians and the practitioners have the opportunity to interface the knowledge / skills / techniques they have acquired while guiding the practitioner to acquire new knowledge / skills and techniques that will facilitate effective outcomes for the clients.

The Clinical Supervisors at AppleTree Counselling Centre are Master Clinical Members under Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC). Supervision services are open to

Trainee counsellors commonly called as interns or student counsellor.
Practitioners in the social service sector and private practice.
MOE Counsellors seeking on-going professional development to enhance clinical competencies for effective service delivery to children an youths.
Advance practitioners who have in the counselling field for 3-5 years seeking professional development and peer support
Practitioners / Counsellors seeking clinical supervision from SAC registered supervisors in order to become a SAC Registered Counsellor (RC) or those who wish maintain the RC status under SAC.