To foster their development as future supervisors, psychology interns will be given opportunities to provide either direct or simulated supervision to others at their sites. During these opportunities, interns explore the professional role of supervisor and develop skills and attitudes appropriate to that function. Interns practice supervising in either a real or simulated setting facilitated on site by their supervisors. The chief purpose of these opportunities is to provide interns with experiential training in the supervision profession-wide competency and to encourage them to begin developing an effective supervision approach while receiving valuable and honest feedback in its practice.
Member sites are encouraged to allow psychology interns to participate in a vertical supervision system when available. Vertical Supervision is when interns provide direct supervision to someone, such as a practicum student, at the site. If the site provides this opportunity, they are required to provide an additional 30 minutes of individual supervision with a licensed psychologist dedicated to the intern as a supervisor to process the supervision they had with their supervisee. Please follow up with your site to see if this option is available.
Following each opportunity, interns will receive supervision of supervision (for direct supervision experiences) or participate in a group discussion (for simulated sessions) on supervision style, level of effectiveness, areas for improvement, theoretical underpinnings, and/or specific topics of discussion (such as evaluating supervisees or providing difficult feedback).
This process is further supported during the training year via presentations, resources, and discussions that focus on current supervising theories and principles of supervision. These supervision opportunities will be used by the interns’ supervisors to evaluate their performance in the Supervision competency.