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Responsibilities and Guidelines for AAMFT Approved Supervisors
and Supervisor Candidates
AAMFT Approved
Supervisors and supervisor candidates are bound by the
AAMFT Code of Ethics,
and the Responsibilities and Guidelines included in the
Approved Supervisor Designation
Standards and Responsibilities Handbook, October 2007.
-Supervising
for the AAMFT Clinical Membership or MFT
Licensure
-Supervising for the AAMFT Approved Supervisor Designation
-Advertising
-Useful Definitions
Supervising for the AAMFT Clinical Membership or MFT Licensure
AAMFT
Approved Supervisors and supervisor candidates may supervise
trainees who are seeking AAMFT Clinical Membership. When a
supervisor candidate provides the supervision, he/she must
obtain ongoing supervision mentoring from a current AAMFT
Approved Supervisor.
AAMFT Approved Supervisors are often asked to supervise
individuals who are seeking licensure as MFTs. These
Responsibilities and Guidelines provide direction for the
conduct of clinical supervision. When supervising a trainee
for licensure, Approved Supervisors should also seek
information from the relevant state/provincial regulatory
board to become familiar with the requirements specific to
that state/province’s regulation. This will include criteria,
if specified, for who may offer supervision in that
state/province, and requirements that the trainee must meet.
Approved Supervisors are looked to for guidance, and are
responsible for being familiar with the relevant guidelines
and thereby able to properly advise supervisees.
Supervision of marital
and family therapy is expected to have the following
characteristics:
•
Face-to-face conversation between the MFT/MFT trainee and the
supervisor, usually in periods of approximately one hour each.
• The learning process should be sustained and intense.
• Appointments are customarily scheduled once a week, three
times weekly is ordinarily the maximum and once every other
week the minimum.
• Supervision focuses on raw data from a MFT’s/trainee’s
continuing clinical practice, which is available to the
supervisor through a combination of direct live observation,
co-therapy, written clinical notes, audio and video
recordings, and live supervision.
• It is a process clearly distinguishable from personal
psychotherapy and is contracted in order to serve professional
goals.
• It is normally completed over a period of one to three
years.
The following characteristics are not acceptable as
marriage & family therapy supervision:
• Peer
supervision, i.e., supervision by a person of equivalent,
rather than superior, qualifications, status and experience.
• Supervision by current or former family members or any other
person where the nature of the personal relationship prevents
or makes difficult the establishment of a professional
relationship.
• Administrative supervision by an institutional director or
executive, for example, conducted to evaluate job performance
or for case management, not the quality of therapy given to a
client.
• A primarily didactic process wherein techniques or
procedures are taught in a group setting, classroom, workshop
or seminar.
• Consultation, staff development or orientation to a field
program, or role-playing of family interrelationships as a
substitute for current clinical practice in an appropriate
clinical situation.
An Approved Supervisor or
supervisor candidate must not supervise his or her family
members, former family members, clients in therapy, or any
other person with whom the nature of the relationship prevents
or makes difficult the establishment of a professional
supervisory relationship. Refer to the
AAMFT Code of Ethics
for more information and guidance about multiple relationships
in supervision.
Supervisors are responsible for an initial screening to
evaluate the MFT’s/MFT trainee’s knowledge of systems theory,
family development, special family issues, gender and cultural
issues, systemic approaches and interventions, human
development, human sexuality, and ethical responsibilities.
A contract should be developed for the supervision, which
delineates fees, hours, time and place of meetings, case
responsibility, caseload review, handling of suicide threats,
other dangerous clinical situations, and so forth. Supervisors
should recognize their legal responsibilities for cases seen
by supervisees.
The supervision fee is a
function of the contract between supervisors and MFTs/trainees,
including amounts and collection procedures. Fees should be in
keeping with the community standard. Approved Supervisors and
supervisor candidates are encouraged to commit a portion of
their supervision practice to providing pro-bono or reduced
fee supervision to deserving MFTs/trainees.
The
major emphasis on supervision should be on the MFTs/trainee’s
work with marriage/couple and family process, whether the MFT/trainee
is working with individuals, couples or families. During the
supervision session, the MFT/trainee’s cases, not the
supervisor’s, are to be discussed.
To count toward AAMFT Membership, individual supervision
must be limited to one or two MFTs/trainees in
face-to-face sessions with the supervisor. Group
supervision must be limited to six supervisees. Trainees
in group supervision sessions may not count the time as
individual supervision even if they are presenting a case.
They may count time as individual supervision when providing
therapy while the supervisor and a group are observing the
therapy.
The progress of MFTs/trainees should be periodically reviewed
according to pre-determined supervisory goals, and evaluations
should be shared and discussed with trainees. Should a
supervisor develop significant concerns about the abilities,
philosophical beliefs, or practices of an MFT/trainee, the
concerns must be shared with the MFT/trainee and documented in
writing as early as possible. Supervisors do not disclose MFT/trainee
confidences except in limited circumstances described in the
AAMFT Code of Ethics. Supervisors and MFTs/trainees
must have a clear understanding about responsibility for
evaluations as well as specific details about how the
evaluation will be shared.
Supervisors must provide supervision reports as needed by MFTs/trainees,
such as those required for AAMFT membership. The supervisor’s
signature on the forms verifies the accuracy of the
information reported, so the supervisor is responsible for
ensuring that the MFT/trainee has actually completed the
clinical and supervision hours reported. When supervision is
provided by a supervisor candidate who has not yet been
awarded the Approved Supervisor designation, the MFT/trainee
should be provided with a completed
Supervisor Candidate
Verification Form
verifying that the candidate is in ongoing supervision
mentoring.
The Approved Supervisor’s
Role with Regard to AAMFT Membership Requirements and
Licensure Requirements:
Supervisors must ensure that they are familiar with current
AAMFT membership requirements. Since applicants for AAMFT
membership must meet standards in place at the time of their
application, the supervisor should encourage them to apply for
AAMFT membership at the level for which they are currently
qualified (student, associate, affiliate or Clinical
Membership). By doing so, supervisors and MFTs/trainees will
know exactly what additional requirements must be met in order
for the MFT/trainee to obtain Clinical Membership.
If the MFT/trainee intends to apply for MFT licensure,
and use the supervision being provided to fulfill those
licensure requirements, the Approved Supervisor should also be
familiar with licensure requirements in the state/province
concerned.
AAMFT membership applications and files are confidential.
Therefore, the AAMFT membership evaluators can discuss their
content with the membership applicant only, not with the
applicant’s supervisor. Supervisors should tell MFTs/trainees
that despite their responsibility to evaluate the trainee’s
knowledge, only the AAMFT can determine when membership
requirements have been met.
Approved Supervisors who choose not to maintain Clinical
Membership with the AAMFT must make a special effort to stay
up-to-date on the latest AAMFT membership requirements, since
these non-members will not learn of membership changes through
the traditional routes of member communication (i.e., member
emails and mailings). All AAMFT Approved Supervisors are
strongly encouraged to maintain Clinical Membership in the
AAMFT.
Supervising for the AAMFT Approved Supervisor Designation
AAMFT
Approved Supervisors may be asked to serve as the mentor for a
marriage and family therapist who wishes to become an Approved
Supervisor. Before accepting the responsibility of mentoring a
supervisor candidate, the Approved Supervisor should be
thoroughly familiar with the current requirements for becoming
an Approved Supervisor.
Approved Supervisors must have accumulated a total of 300
hours of MFT supervision experience before they can provide
supervision mentoring to supervisor candidates. The 300 hours
can include the 180 hours of supervision the Approved
Supervisor provided during his/her own training for the
designation.
Approved Supervisors are responsible for an initial screening
to evaluate the prospective supervisor candidate’s familiarity
with the important literature in MFT, theories of supervision,
supervision practice, and professional ethics. Supervisor
candidates should be able to effectively apply a systemic
perspective. If supervisor candidates are not AAMFT Clinical
Members, the Approved Supervisor mentor should direct them to
the AAMFT for an evaluation to ensure they can meet the
requirements for Clinical Membership by the time they intend
to apply for the designation.
Before a prospective supervisor candidate begins to train for
the designation, they and their Approved Supervisor mentor
should review the requirements for becoming an Approved
Supervisor, verify that the candidate meets the prerequisites
for becoming a supervisor candidate, and have an adequate plan
for meeting the application requirements.
A contract between the Approved Supervisor mentor and the
supervisor candidate should be developed which delineates
fees, hours, time and place of meetings, case responsibility,
caseload review, handling of suicide threats and other
dangerous clinical situations, and so forth. The schedule of
meetings should be such that the supervisor candidate is able
to complete the requirements in the time limits specified for
training.
The fee for supervision mentoring is a function of the
contract between Approved Supervisors and the supervisor
candidate, including amounts and collection procedures. Fees
should be in keeping with the community standard. Approved
Supervisors are encouraged to provide supervision mentoring to
deserving supervisor candidates on a pro-bono or reduced fee
basis.
Responsibility of the Approved Supervisor in the Mentoring of
Supervision Candidates:
When an
Approved Supervisor agrees to mentor a supervisor candidate
during their training for the Approved Supervisor designation,
the Approved Supervisor mentor assumes responsibility for
overseeing the training, providing supervision mentoring,
evaluating the candidate’s progress, and assisting the
candidate in making the final application for the designation.
This requires the Approved Supervisor to be completely
familiar with eligibility criteria, supervisory training
requirements and application procedures as described in the
Approved
Supervisor Designation Standards and Responsibilities
Handbook, October 2007. It is the Approved Supervisor’s
responsibility to mentor and socialize the supervisor
candidate into the family therapy supervision tradition
through an intensive emphasis on the
nine learning objectives.
The Approved Supervisor
mentor should maintain a strict log of supervision mentoring,
and review the supervisor candidate’s log of supervision that
the candidate is providing to MFTs/trainees. A sample of a
supervision log can be found by clicking
here. The Approved Supervisor mentor will be asked to
verify these hours at the time of the candidate’s application
for the designation. The Approved Supervisor mentor must
ensure that the hours counted by the supervisor candidate were
actually spent in case discussion, and on the development of
the candidate’s supervisory skills. Hours spent discussing the
requirements for the designation, or on completing the
Approved Supervisor application packet, should not be counted
as hours toward the supervision mentoring requirement.
Supervision mentoring is expected to have the following
characteristics:
• It must
focus primarily on live or audio taped/videotaped sessions of
the supervision candidate’s work with a MFT/trainee.
• It must include no more than two supervisor candidates at
the same time. Supervision mentoring of a group of supervisor
candidates does not count toward fulfilling the requirements.
• It must consist of face-to-face conversation between the
Approved Supervisor mentor and the supervisor candidate,
usually in periods of one hour each.
• The major emphasis should be on the development of the
supervisor candidate’s supervisory skills as opposed to an
exclusive focus on clinical therapy skills.
Work supervised is to be conducted in appropriate professional
settings with adequate facilities. The Approved Supervisor
mentor must be available to the supervisor candidate in
emergency situations or arrange in advance for a colleague to
provide emergency consultation if needed by the supervisor
candidate.
The Approved Supervisor mentor must evaluate and provide
regular feedback to the supervisor candidate about progress,
strengths, and areas in which professional development are
needed. It is recommended that after half of the required
hours of supervision mentoring have been received, the
Approved Supervisor conduct a mid-term evaluation. (Some
suggestions for the evaluation can be found by clicking
here.) Any concerns
that could affect the candidate’s eventual application for the
Approved Supervisor designation should be documented, along
with a proposed plan to address them, and both should be
shared with the supervisor candidate. Approved Supervisors and
supervisor candidates must have a clear understanding about
the responsibility for evaluations and reports as well as
specific details about how they will be shared.
While the evaluation and feedback process should be ongoing,
the Approved Supervisor mentor will be asked to complete a
written
Approved Supervisor Evaluation of the
candidate when the candidate is ready to apply for the
designation. If the Approved Supervisor
rates the candidate below an acceptable level on any of the
evaluation criteria, the mentor and candidate should develop a
specific plan for remediation. This could include additional
reading or specific discussions in supervision mentoring
sessions.
If, at any time, concerns
develop between an Approved Supervisor mentor and a supervisor
candidate about their relationship, or the competence or
behavior of either, the matter should be documented and
discussed between the two. If the discussion does not lead to
a mutually agreeable plan and all other means of resolving the
matter have been exhausted (grievance procedures at the
institution or agency, for example), the Approved Supervisor
mentor and
supervisor
candidate may consider consulting with another AAMFT Approved
Supervisor. If the matter still cannot be resolved, the mentor
and/or candidate should consult with the AAMFT supervision
staff before proceeding with further sessions.
Supervisors do not disclose supervisee confidences except in
limited circumstances as described in the
AAMFT Code of
Ethics.
Approved Supervisors may
not provide supervision mentoring to their family members,
former family members, clients in therapy, or any other person
with whom the nature of the relationship prevents or makes
difficult the establishment of a professional supervisory
relationship. Although provision of supervision to colleagues
and employees in the same organization is a widespread
practice, Approved Supervisors must ensure that their judgment
is not contaminated by the context. A supervisor supervising a
superior, for example, could confuse the hierarchy and place
the employee at risk.
When the supervisor candidate has met the requirements for the
designation and is ready to submit the Approved Supervisor
application, the Approved Supervisor must approve and sign the
application materials before the supervisor candidate submits
them to the AAMFT. The Approved Supervisor’s signature
indicates that she/he believes that ALL requirements
for the designation have been met, and further, that the
supervisor candidate has successfully integrated the
nine
learning objectives into a coherent theory and practice of MFT
supervision.
With the Approved Supervisor mentor’s signature on the
Approved Supervisor application, the AAMFT staff will complete
a quantitative review to ensure that all deadlines have been
met and appropriate hours earned. If so, the AAMFT will award
the Approved Supervisor designation to the supervisor
candidate.
Advertising
Advertising by Approved Supervisors:
Approved
Supervisors may advertise their designation in the yellow
pages, and on business cards, stationery, etc., provided these
conform with the principles of the
AAMFT Code of Ethics.
An example of an appropriate listing is “AAMFT Approved
Supervisor.” Approved Supervisors may also list the
designation in programs, registers, professional journals, and
newsletters. The designation must not be represented as an
advanced clinical status.
AAMFT Clinical Members receive a listing on the AAMFT online
referral service,
TherapistLocator.net.
Approved Supervisors who are Clinical Members are encouraged
to update their TherapistLocator profile to describe their
supervision practice, and to attract potential supervisees.
Advertising by Supervisor Candidates:
Supervisor
candidates may not list that status in the yellow
pages, on business cards, stationery, in programs, registers,
journals, etc. The term “supervisor candidate” is used to
describe persons who are actively training for the Approved
Supervisor designation, but it is not a title or credential
and should not be used as such. Supervisor candidates should
take care that they do not imply that they have been awarded a
designation, or that they will definitely receive the
designation at some specified date. Candidates may indicate on
resumes that they are in training to become Approved
Supervisors, but only if it is clear that the candidate is not
an AAMFT Approved Supervisor but is in training for the
designation. The term “Approved Supervisor” should not be used
until the supervisor candidate officially receives the
designation.
If supervisor candidates need to contact prospective MFTs/MFT
trainees to offer supervision, the communication should be
clearly intended for marriage and family therapists, not
clients. The focus of the communication should be the fact
that quality training is assured for the prospective MFT/trainee
because the supervisor candidate is under ongoing supervision
by an AAMFT Approved Supervisor. If supervisor candidates are
asked to verify that they are in fact in training for the
designation they may use the
Supervisor Candidate Verification
Form.
Useful Definitions
AAMFT
Approved Supervisor
is an MFT
who has completed the education, experience and supervision
mentoring requirements established by the AAMFT. The Approved
Supervisor designation identifies for the MFT community those
professionals who have met the AAMFT requirements to provide
MFT supervision. It is a designation to identify qualified
supervisors, and is not an advanced clinical credential.
Approved
Supervisor mentor
is an
AAMFT Approved Supervisor who has agreed to provide
supervision and mentorship to a supervisor candidate who
wishes to become an AAMFT Approved Supervisor.
Individual
supervision
is
face-to-face contact between one supervisor and a maximum of
two MFTs/trainees. When more than two individuals are
receiving supervision, it is considered group supervision.
Marriage
and Family Therapist (MFT):
MFTs deal
primarily with relationships and interaction from a systemic
perspective. Thus, the practice of MFT requires special
conceptualization and procedures that are distinct from
individually oriented therapies. It is the specific expertise
in interpersonal relationships, interaction and systems theory
that qualifies a professional as an MFT.
MFT
clinical experience
is
face-to-face sessions with clients, usually in periods of
approximately one hour each, and practiced according to the
ethical standards of the profession, governmental regulation
and the AAMFT. The therapy is sustained and intense, as
indicated by the needs of clients.
MFT
supervision
must be
the supervision of MFT cases. It is direct supervision
provided to an MFT or MFT trainee and may be provided through
live observation of the MFT/trainee and/or face-to-face
contact between the supervisor and the MFT/trainee. (When the
Approved Supervisor or supervisor candidate intends on
receiving credit for this supervisory experience, he or she
must be clearly responsible for the supervision during this
period. Watching another supervisor at work does not count
toward this requirement.)
Supervisees (or trainees)
are MFTs,
or students in training to become MFTs, who are being
supervised by an Approved Supervisor or supervisor candidate.
Supervision mentoring
is a
service provided by an Approved Supervisor to a supervisor
candidate as part of the training requirements for the
Approved Supervisor designation. This has also been referred
to as supervision-of-supervision. The major focus in
supervision mentoring is on the development of the supervisor
candidate’s supervisory abilities as opposed to an exclusive
focus on clinical skills. This experience should focus on live
or taped sessions, and may include no more than two supervisor
candidates.
Supervisor candidate:
A
supervisor candidate is a marriage and family therapist who is
in the process of meeting the educational, experiential and
supervisory training requirements for the AAMFT Approved
Supervisor designation. Supervisor candidates are authorized
to supervise trainees who are in preparation for AAMFT
Clinical Membership, as long as the supervisor candidate
receives ongoing supervision mentoring by an AAMFT Approved
Supervisor.
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
112 South Alfred Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
Email:
central@aamft.org
Phone: 703-838-9808
Fax: 703-838-9805
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