Providing Competency Training to Clinical Supervisors Through an Interactional Supervision Approach

TLDR

Supervisory competency training is essential for effective clinical practice, addresses the behavioral health workforce crisis, and, through interactional supervision that emphasizes interpersonal exchanges, aligns with evidence‑based treatment training and is suitable for social workers, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatric nurses. The study investigates whether supervisory competency training is feasible and improves competencies in 81 clinical supervisors. The training evaluated three competency domains—supervisory relationship management, job performance management, and professional development promotion—before, immediately after, and three months post‑training. Results indicate that the training is feasible, potentially effective, and linked to increased supervisor satisfaction and improved stress management.

Abstract

Training in supervisory competencies is essential to effective clinical practice and helps address the current national crisis in the behavioral health workforce. Interactional supervision, the approach used in the current study, is well established in clinical social work and focuses the task of the supervisee on the interpersonal exchanges encountered in clinical practice. This study examines the feasibility of supervisory competency training and associated gains in competencies among 81 clinical supervisors. Three types of competencies are assessed before and after training and at a 3-month follow-up—managing supervisory relationships, managing job performance, and promoting professional development. The results show that competency training is a feasible and potentially effective approach and is associated with supervisor satisfaction and stress management. The training employed is compatible with skills-based and intervention-specific supervisor training common among evidence-based treatments and is appropriate for use with clinical social workers, counseling and clinical psychologists, and psychiatric nurses.