This six month supervisor certificate course is offered to qualified and established professionals who assist others to develop mastery, depth and responsible practice in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, mediation, mental health and pastoral care.
 
The training provides a generic supervision framework applicable to a range of helping professions. It aims to develop supervisory expertise which supports the optimum expansion of supervisee competence. The training model holds the supervisory relationship as fundamental to the learning process. Coursework includes theoretical and experiential approaches and its design is founded on the principles of adult learning theory.

 

Supervision is viewed as a learning pathway – based on reflection, modelling, coaching and the exercise of good judgement – which is undertaken in a contractual relationship between supervisor and supervisee. The supervisory process assists the integration of skills, knowledge and competency, through casework experience and review, towards the development of an autonomous professional identity.

The reflective alliance of supervision builds supervisee capacity to engage thoughtfully with the new and unknown in their work. It provides a reliably accessible sounding board for the challenging situations arising in professional life. This requires that the supervisor has a capacity for engagement over time with the supervisee’s unique journey, a flexible approach to modes and styles of learning, wise judgement, and an expanded knowledge of the field.

A key purpose for supervision is the ongoing development of the internal supervisory space in the mind of the supervisee so that complex dilemmas can be worked with fruitfully. The training course builds the supervisor’s capacity to be non-defensive and calm, to hold the reflective space open and to avoid the pulls to frustration, rescue, control, blame or withdrawal. The overall goal is optimal progress for the client of the supervisee.