How a lack of supervisors keeps new mental health workers from entering the field

https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2024/08/05/how-a-lack-of-supervisors-keeps-new-mental-health-workers-from-entering-the-field/

It appears new grads in mental health careers are being delayed due to a lack ot others willing or available to provide supervison in TX and other states

How a lack of supervisors keeps new mental health workers from entering the field

 

As the first student in Canada to pursue an MA in Counseling through my alma mater, I was fortunate to secure an internship at a clinic that provides both individual and group supervision. Since staying on there as a full-time therapist, I've continued to participate in individual and group supervision.

I think that the availability of supervision is not the only issue of concern within our profession. The quality of supervision experienced among my peers serving in other setting is quite varied. In many cases, the level of support provided leaves much to be desired.

 

While psychiatric practitioner's skill sets may vary across settings. I've found that students from certain schools are often unprepared for a mental health clinical environment. Their experience seems limited to mock interviews with fellow students and perhaps a single simulated patient interaction with actors provided by the school. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to act as their clinical instructor for the basics of mental health provider skills.

I understand that we all started somewhere and had mentors along the way. However, we need to respect each other's time, both from the student's perspective and from those who are mentoring, supervising, or precepting them. It's important to strike a balance between providing necessary guidance and ensuring students come with a foundational level of preparedness

 

This is an important consideration, too. I can certainly appreciate what you're articulating here. It is unfortunate that some institutions are failing to provide their students with adequate preparation.

 

It took me years to find a chemical dependency counselor internship; I had to go to another metro area. I considered getting a mental health-related master's degree just to waive the internship requirement.

One of my coworkers was struggling to find enough supervision hours for the LPC and LMFT, so she took a job as a substance abuse counselor.

 

When my wife became a licensed mental health counselor there was a pretty well established practice of forming an LLC, hiring a licensed professional as a consultant and having them supervise you until you qualified for an unrestricted license. Basically, you would meet with the person weekly or so and they would go through your charts and offer guidance.

The problem was that this evolved into just pimping out your license for a fee and not doing any supervision. You had individuals "consulting" for 20 different practitioners and clearly just signing off on whatever they did. So the state cracked down. The current guidance is that the person doing the supervision has to have a greater degree of control over your work. I appreciate the sentiment. But there are very few places that actually employ LMFTs and LMHCs. Most postings are for LCSW and psychologists have an entirely different clinical practicum scheme.

From what I understand the way people are going back to the old way is to instead of hiring the consultant to work for your LLC you essentially pay the consultant so you can be supervised under the consultant's LLC. Though it's unfortunate this sort of sneaking around seems essential to getting your license. Especially so when you consider that we're one of the states that allows a physician to practice without completing a residency.