This information provides guidance for accredited therapists, and those intending to apply to reinstate your Accreditation using our Return to Practice Policy. It will also apply if you are a qualified therapist who is practising CBT prior to applying for or receiving accreditation. You must have also met all the criteria for Section 7 of the Minimum Training Standards and there is separate guidance for the supervision of the Training Cases shown in section 3ei of the application form.
Amounts of supervision
You should be receiving regular CBT supervision appropriate to your case-load and level of expertise. For a full-time clinical practice, this should be a minimum of one-and-a-half hours per month of supervision. This can be an average, providing the contact is regular.
You should be receiving supervision for all areas of your practice- e.g. both employed and private.
It isn’t a requirement, but we advise that newly-trained therapists have a higher frequency and duration of supervision than experienced colleagues.
If you work less than half-time clinical work, you can reduce the overall amount of supervision time on a pro-rata basis to a minimum of 45 minutes.
You can count all time spent in group supervision providing the group has no more than six members. Group supervision will be facilitated by one regular supervisor and all group members must present their own material regularly. You must have an opportunity for individual supervision should it be needed, or quickly available alternative supervision, e.g. advice in a crisis situation.
You should ensure that you have appropriate supervision arrangements in place for each area of your practice. Supervision provided during one area of practice (e.g. an employed role or in private practice) will only be appropriate to work undertaken in that role, and you will need additional supervision provision for other areas of practice – even if one role provides the minimum requirements in relation to hours and frequency of supervision.
The minimum of one-and-a-half hours of group supervision alone would not be sufficient for a full-time experienced clinician. Eg provision may need to be made for episodes of live supervision or other reasons either within individual or additional group sessions.
Types and methods of supervision
Clinical supervision can be individual, peer, or in a CBT supervision group. It can take place in person, using video conferencing, “instant messaging” services or phone. If agreed, ad hoc supervision for specific questions can take place using any of these methods, email or other suitable electronic forms of communication. There should be face-to-face contact at least twice a year, but this includes using video conferencing.
You can’t count professional consultancy, professional or managerial supervision as clinical supervision even though they might be provided by the same person. For the training cases for Accreditation, peer supervision and written forms supervision should not be used.
Live supervision
It is a requirement for accreditation and its maintenance that your supervisor observes ‘live’ and feeds back on your practice. This must take place regularly, and at least twice per year.
To apply for First Accreditation Audit, or to complete your Random Reaccreditation Audit, your Supervision Logs and Supervisor’s Reports must show how ‘live’ supervision has been used.
If your current supervisor report does not verify that you have completed live supervision with them, your previous supervisor should also submit a report to confirm this, even if you have been with your current supervisor for more than six months.
Evidence of this may also be requested if you apply to reinstate your accreditation using Return to Practice.
Overcoming obstacles to live supervision
We recognise there may be clinical settings where obtaining consent to record is more difficult. If you are in this situation, please allow some supervision time to find solutions to meeting this requirement. The suggestions below may help and apply once the close supervision requirements of the training cases for accreditation have been met –
Live supervision can be:
- A full video or audio recording of a clinical session
- A shorter extract from a video or audio recording of a clinical session- for example showing agenda setting or homework setting to work in detail on this particular element
- A supervisor sitting in on an in-person clinical session or online clinical session or telephone clinical session
- Live observation of a session through a one-way screen.
- Assessed by the optional use of a CTS-R
- Carried out in additional settings eg private or voluntary practice for the purposes of meeting this requirement
- Assessed by your supervisor through co-delivering group or individual CBT with you
If your supervisor is not able to provide sufficient live supervision
It can be provided by another supervisor who meets our credentials, through any of the means described above.
In this case, the supervisor providing the live assessment should provide feedback to your main supervisor to verify in your supervisor’s report. If this is not possible or appropriate, the supervisor who has provided the live supervision should also submit a supervisor’s report. This can be brief provided that the live supervision elements are completed.
Applications and audits will not be successful if they do not demonstrate meeting all live supervision requirements.
Peer Supervision
In peer supervision, therapists will both supervise and be supervised by each other, and will take turns in each role. It can be one-to-one or in a group. You can count only the time spent receiving supervision towards Accreditation and Reaccreditation. This will be both in one-to-one and peer supervision groups. Peer supervision cannot be used for training cases for Accreditation application.
Specialist areas of CBT supervision
If you are accredited, you can practice exclusively, specialise in, or include other evidence-based cognitive and/or behavioural therapies. Your supervision should reflect this and can be in exclusively in a particular cognitive-behavioural approach if this is appropriate to your practice.
Similarly, your supervision should be appropriate to any specialist client groups.
Supervision Logs
We recommended that you complete a Supervision Log entry during or shortly after each session. Supervision Logs are available to download for First Accreditation Audit and Random Reaccreditation Audit. They may also be requested if you apply to reinstate your accreditation using Return to Practice. For Accreditation, the logs are within the application form.
Supervisor’s Reports
Supervisor’s Reports are needed for non-Level 2 Accreditation applications, First Accreditation Audit and if you are invited for Random Reaccreditation Audit. They may also be requested if you apply to reinstate your accreditation using Return to Practice. They should be supplied by your current supervisor. If you have been with your current supervisor for less than six months, you should also include one by your previous supervisor.
