Picking a Behaviour Support Supervisor
Rebecca Kim
Introduction
Picking the right PBS Supervisor can be a difficult task - you need to find:
A high-quality Clinical Supervisor,
With availability,
You’re compatible with, and
With a complementary supervision style.
It’s a bit of a hard ask! Especially when you might be doing this search in the middle of a panic after receiving notification from the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission that you need to establish supervision asap. Don’t worry, a lot of people have been in the same boat as the guidance around registering as a Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner can be unclear at times.
What is Supervision?
This seems like a basic question, but often people all hold different ideas about what supervision is supposed to look like. People come into the PBS field from all manner of backgrounds and therefore have different perspectives.
Generally, within the PBS context, supervision is an ongoing mandatory process of engaging with a Supervisor at a regular interval to discuss common practice topics such as:
Guidance and reflection on what to do with a participant’s case
Discussion around restrictive practice, including determining the necessity, choosing the least restrictive approach, and managing implementation, monitoring, and fadeout of these restrictions
Ethical considerations and dilemmas
Complex case discussion and debriefing
Advice around PBS processes and documentation
Direction toward different resources, policies, legislation, and more
Professional development, including working on your learning goals
Support around the PBS Capability Framework
Usually the expectation is on the Supervisee, the Behaviour Support Practitioner (BSP) engaging to receive Clinical Supervision, to prepare the topics for discussion prior to the session. I’ll talk about this more in an upcoming blog about Supervision Documentation.
How is Supervision Different to Meetings with your Line Manager?
Clinical Supervision and meetings with your manager might have some overlap, however your manager is likely to talk to you about things such as your caseload and new referrals, internal processes and systems, your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and billing, organisational culture and expectations, internal policies and procedures, etc. Essentially, anything related to the organisation you work for.
Clinical Supervisors won’t talk to you about these topics unless it becomes relevant to your practice, which is our main focus. Our goal is to support you to continually improve as a BSP, supporting your practice, ethical decision-making, and your development.
Sometimes your Line Manager and your Supervisor can be the same person. There’s pros and cons to this. The main benefits are that your Manager/Supervisor can provide more immediate and hands-on support when needed and will have greater context for discussions. The main considerations are that there may be things you feel constrained in saying to your Manager, or your supervision might be management-heavy with less opportunity for you to talk about your learning goals and professional development. If this feels relatable to you, you might like to consider seeking some external Supervision.
What Capability Levels Can Supervise Who?
If a BSP has been endorsed within the PBS Capability Framework at the level of Proficient, Advanced, or Specialist, they can be a Supervisor.
Straight from the PBS Capability Framework itself on page 17:
Proficient BSPs may supervise a Core BSP if they’re skilled and knowledgeable enough for this;
Advanced BSPs can supervise other BSPs at all levels; and
Specialist BSPs can supervise other BSPs in their area of expertise.
What To Look For While Researching Supervisors
Before you settle on a Supervisor, you might want to consider a few different options. Check for who’s available and have a read of their Supervisor profile. Check whether they have experience supervising BSPs in your State or Territory. This will be important when it comes time for compliance and restrictive practice authorisation as different regions have different legislations and processes.
You might also want to see how long they’ve been a BSP (it usually takes 2+ years to become a Proficient BSP), and whether their background and experience aligns with the kinds of participants and situations you have with your caseload, e.g. worked with children within Child Safety residential care, worked with psychosocial disability in a Forensic setting, etc.
Finding out about their supervision style or model might also help work out whether this relationship will help you become the BSP you want to be. For example, would you prefer your Supervisor to help direct you throughout the session to a useful outcome or training resource, or would you prefer someone who spends more time reflecting with you on your practice to help you decide how you’d like to move forward?
After considering the above, chat with your shortlist directly or organise a meet and greet to see if you might be a good match together. In doing this, you might find that you’d actually like to work with more than one Supervisor. A number of my Supervisees actually engage with myself and another Supervisor because they like discussing different parts of their practice or getting different perspectives across BSPs or even different disciplines, e.g. a psychologist’s view for interventions and appointment exercises. Just be mindful that your Supervisors might sometimes give you different advice due to those diverse perspectives!
Conclusion
Once you’ve decided on a Supervisor, it’s time to lock in your regular sessions, get a Supervision Agreement from them, and move onto the next stage of your practice with their ongoing support. I have much more to discuss about the Supervisor / Supervisee relationship, so I’ll continue writing these articles in the hopes they help.
Please feel free to reach out to us at any time you have specific questions about PBS Supervision which haven’t been answered in our FAQ or our articles; we’d be more than happy to support you in your PBS journey.
