ACS Definitions

1. Roles and Functions of Clinical Supervision -- Includes the unique purposes, goals and foci of supervision, the appropriate conditions for supervision, and the distinction between supervision and other professional roles.

2. Models of Clinical Supervision -- Includes the major approaches for conceptualizing supervision (e.g. psychotherapy, theory-based models of supervision, developmental models, and social role models).

3. Professional Development -- Includes topics such as individual learning styles, cognitive development levels, differences in experience levels, stages of professional development, and critical transition points, as well as how to create an appropriate educational environment or climate based on developmental differences.

4. Methods and Techniques in Clinical Supervision -- Includes supervision methods for assessing and intervening with supervisees (e.g., audiotape review, live supervision, self-report), as well as the appropriate use of, and benefits and limitations of, each supervision method.

5. Supervisory Relationship Issues -- Includes the inter- and intrapersonal variables that affect supervision such as the parameters of a working alliance, conflict within supervision, supervisee anxiety, social influence, and parallel process.

6. Cultural Issues in Supervision -- Includes the implications of cultural differences and/or similarities between supervisee and supervisor such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and belief systems, and how these impact the process and outcome of supervision.

7. Group Supervision -- Includes topics such as the structure and processes of group supervision, the unique tasks of the supervisor in the group context, ground rules and stages of group supervision, and the advantages and limitations of the group modality.

8. Legal and Ethical Issues -- Includes major ethical and legal tenets that affect supervision such as due process, confidentiality, informed consent, dual relationships, competence, duty to warn, and direct and vicarious liability, and the implications of these tenets for supervisees, clients, and the supervisor.

9. Evaluation -- Includes studies that address the role of evaluation as central to supervision, criteria for evaluation, sources of feedback, the process and outcomes of evaluation, and the role of documentation in evaluation, as well as procedures for the evaluation of the supervision experience.