Episode 37: Clinical Supervision Is Crucial — Lifelong Learning [featuring Dr. Amy Parks]

Show Notes

Clinical supervision and ongoing training are absolutely crucial in the therapy world.

Dr. Amy Parks and I talk about the need for lifelong learning, finding the right fit for supervision, and the importance of constantly learning.

It's important for people in the helping profession to stay up to date on training, cultural sensitivity, and affirmative care, as well as ensure they're providing ethical care.

More about Amy:

Dr. Amy Fortney Parks brings with her over 30 years of experience working with children, adolescents, and families as both an educator and psychologist.  She is a passionate “BRAIN -ENTHUSIAST” and strives to help everyone she works with understand the brain science of communication, activation, and relationships. 

Dr. Parks has a Doctorate in Educational Psychology with a specialty in developmental neuroscience. She is a Child & Adolescent Psychologist as well as the founder and Clinical Director of WISE Mind Solutions LLC and The Wise Family Counseling, Assessment & Education in Virginia.  

Dr. Parks serves as a Clinical Supervisor for Virginia LPC Residents, as well as Dominion Psychiatric Hospital. Additionally, she is an adjunct professor at George Washington University & The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Dr. Parks is a frequently sought-after parent coach and speaker for families and groups around the world!  

Dr. Parks’ focuses include individual and group counseling, parent coaching and co-parenting, educational consulting, IEP development, and psychoeducational assessment. She most recently launched a national directory for clinical supervisors in the mental health field – the Clinical Supervision Directory (www.ClinicalSupervisionDirectory.com). She is also currently in the (painful) process of writing a book focused on making brain science ridiculously simple for all of us! 

More information about Dr. Parks and how to connect with her directly about your family or group is available on her website, www.thewisefamily.com. 

Ms. Parks is a native Alexandrian and the mother of four children between the ages of 21 and 28, as well as a Mimi to a 2 ½ year old.  In her spare time, she loves to read teen fiction, cook, and hang out with friends who have boats!

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A Thanks to Our Sponsor!

I would also like to thank Embark EMR for sponsoring this episode.

Embark EMR is a superb software solution for solo practitioners, as well as group practices. Embark was designed by therapists to be simple and intuitive without all the extra stuff that you don't need so you don't feel like you're being nickel and dimed. Embark enables scheduling with automatic appointment reminders, a note organization system with multiple pre-built templates, and an automated invoice and superbill generation to make it easier on your clients.

There's even a patient portal where your clients can access notes, documents, and generate their own invoices and superbills. Embark EMR is setting a new precedent in EMR functionality and affordability. Embark’s simple one-tier system is $20 a month per therapist, and there are never any extra fees. Try Embark EMR today with a free trial at embarkemr.com.

Transcript

PATRICK CASALE: This episode of the All Things Private Practice Podcast is brought to you by Embark EMR. Embark is a superb software solution for the solo practitioner as well as group practices. Embark was designed by therapists to be simple and intuitive without all the extra stuff that you don't need, so you don't feel like you're being nickeled and dimed. 

Embark enables scheduling with automatic appointment reminders, a note organization system with multiple pre-built templates, and an automatic invoice and Superbill generation to make it easier on your clients. There's even a patient portal where your clients can access notes, documents and generate their own invoices and Superbills. 

Embark EMR is setting a new precedent in EMR functionality and affordability. Embark's simple one-tier system is $20 a month per therapist and are never any extra fees. Try Embark EMR today with a free trial at embarkemr.com. You can also use code ATPP for 20% off an entire year of Embark.

Hey everyone, you are listening to another episode of the All Things Private Practice Podcast. I'm your host, Patrick Casale and I'm joined today by my friend and colleague, Dr. Amy Parks. She is the Founder of the Clinical Supervision Directory. She is located in Virginia and a PhD as well. And we're going to talk about all things supervision today, the good, bad and ugly, and everything in between. So, Amy, I'm really happy to have you on. I'm glad we could finally make this time work and excited to talk about what you've created.

AMY PARKS: Absolutely. I feel kind of like I'm on like tour, because I've been doing a lot of podcasts. And I'm really excited to be here with your audience and to be talking to you because it's extra fun to do podcasts with people I know and love and to talk about clinical supervision. I swore I would not be the supervision lady, but I have turned into that. So, I'm happy to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sadly, there is some, but also, to talk about some exciting things for our field and for our professional colleagues.

PATRICK CASALE: Yeah, I think that all sounds great. And yeah, I when I think of supervision I definitely associate your name with that term, so I guess you have become the supervision lady, so to speak

AMY PARKS: Oh, geez, yeah. 

PATRICK CASALE: But to imagine that was some of the intention starting the clinical supervision directory at some point or another. But yeah, I want to talk about this subject, because it's so important for mental health practitioners to have good quality supervision, but more importantly, to have supervision that is also in alignment with who they are, and that takes culture into consideration, and just really, you know, has a different perspective on the way things are done. And I can tell some stories about some ugly/non-helpful supervision situations as we probably all can, especially, those of us who may be in community mental health or have left community mental health. So, can you tell us a little bit about where this journey starts and why this has become your passion?

AMY PARKS: Yeah, so you know, we have a pretty big systemic issue in supervision. And, you know, it's really a kind of defined as the gap. And it's been a gap for a really, really long time. And we all sort of acknowledge it. And you know, we talk about this in therapy all the time. And as therapists, I think it's funny that we've come to sort of tolerate this gap. And of course, we know, as therapists that when you tolerate something you're also endorsing it. So, we've tolerated, and then, therefore, endorsed this gap for decades, or, you know, at least for a very long time, and this gap exists.

And that is that, when you go from your graduate program or you're moving along your licensure journey, and you go from your graduate program into supervision, it's really difficult for a variety of reasons to find supervision and not only to find supervision, but to find quality supervision that aligns with lots of different things and kind of checks the boxes, like you mentioned, checks the cultural box, checks the diversity box, checks the gender box, checks the professional, sort of, alignment box, private practice, community mental health, social work, counseling, marriage, and family therapy, EMDR, RPT, all of the alphabets, you know? Checks all those boxes, checks the geographic box, checks the handicap accessible office, checks the can I see you by teletherapy box, all those different things. And again, because we tolerated this, we've therefore endorsed it.

And you know, I don't know about you, but a lot of us have found our supervision or supervisors, you know, by asking a friend of a friend of a friend, or, you know, we talked to a colleague or a professor and we sort of got a recommendation or we sort of we're forced into our supervisory relationship by means of, you know, our employer. And you know, that's really the way you either get forced off the highway in the middle of nowhere to the worst possible McDonald's, because you have nowhere else to eat or go to the bathroom or that's how you find a restaurant. Because, you know, like, that's what somebody recommended. 

Okay, so you got to eat, you got to get supervision, so you go with what's easy. But it's not really always the healthiest or the best strategy for you to get your professional supervision. And so, we're training. And I'm not saying that all of us are not quality and skilled because of this, but we're training our next generation of clinical supervisors in a way that is not necessarily aligned with best practice. 

And so, therefore, I believe that if we want to uplevel what we're providing for our communities, then we need to be saying that we want to uplevel the strategy that we use for matching clinical supervision with the clinical supervision seekers. And because we have some fantastic, many, many, many hundreds of fantastic clinical supervisors who just need to find the right fit. So, that's what the clinical supervision directory does. It's kind of like the match.com of supervision, except we're not allowed to say that because of course, you know, we'd get sued and you're not supposed to date your supervisor, that's bad, bad, bad. And [CROSSTALK 00:06:08].

PATRICK CASALE: So, there's no catfishing [CROSSTALK 00:06:10].

AMY PARKS: There's no catfishing, there's no Tinder for supervision. But the point is, is that there has to be a way to match that's better. And, you know, during the pandemic I just started realizing that no one was doing this and none of our associations, NASW, and ACA, and AMFT, and AMCA, none of them were addressing the gap, because again, we're tolerating it. We've endorsed it for decades, why not just keep on letting the gap just exist? And I promise you, Patrick, I looked so hard, I looked so damn hard, because I didn't want to do this. But I didn't, I really didn't. But I thought someone has to do this, surely someone has done this, someone has closed this gap already. And a few people in a few states have but not nationwide.

PATRICK CASALE: Seems like a pretty enormous undertaking, you know, especially, when you say, "I didn't want to do this." It sounds like almost like a project out of necessity, in a lot of ways, is how it came about of like, "I noticed that this is a need that we need to fill." And you're right, we are conditioned to think about supervision in one way or another if we work for an agency, you see the agency supervisor, right?

AMY PARKS: Right.

PATRICK CASALE: And when I worked in community mental health that supervision was free and included in your salary, and you were really excited, "Yes, I'm going to get in-house supervision." And then, I would go to supervision, and it would be an hour and a half long, and there would be 20 people in there. And my supervisor was overworked, and spread too thin, and exhausted, and it was just a bitching session, so to speak, where people were just like airing their complaints or their grievances, or their frustrations. And to me, I was just like, "Well, I'm not going back to supervision then because this is pointless for me. I mean, this is not helpful."

And I think a lot of us have those experiences, but we endure it because we're like, "Well, this is what we have to do, this is what is required of us." And we're not really learning a whole lot in a setting like that one. That is the structure of the supervision. And I know that's not everything. I know every place doesn't operate that way. But I think for a lot of people, they do experience it. And then, they don't really get to ask the challenging questions, they don't really get to conceptualize around cases, they don't really get to work with supervisors who, like you said, maybe they look like them, maybe they identify in a certain way, maybe they practice in a certain style. It's more just like, you get what you get and this is all we have to offer. 

And I remember going to my program manager saying like, "Hey, if you're going to keep me here and you want to keep me happy, then you're going to pay for external supervision, because that's the only way I'm going to do this job for you." And they did, but they limited it, "We'll pay $30 an hour outside of this." And I couldn't find anybody. Nobody wanted to take that on, so I ended up paying out of pocket. And again, just one of those things that was a benefit at the time of working at an agency job no longer became a benefit, it actually became quite a deterrent and a detriment to me in my clinical pursuit of my license.

AMY PARKS: You know, it's interesting, too, you know. So the challenge is great, the challenge is huge for supervision seekers, the challenge is equally huge for supervisors, as you're mentioning, so you know, I don't want to fault that supervisor who had the 20 people at your agency and really could only provide managerial supervision, because they were stretched. You know, they were probably an amazing clinical supervisor and just didn't have any option. And so, you know, I meet a lot of clinical supervisors who say, "Well, I don't really need to be in your directory, because I've already got 20 supervisees."

And my argument back to them and this is really kind of been an interesting journey for me, my argument back to them is, "No, you don't. You're right, you don't need to be in my directory, but you do. And here's why, because you represent a demographic to the next generation that they need to see, they need to see what they are aspiring to clinically in order to know what they need to become." And so, you can say in your directory listing, "I'm not taking on supervisees." But this is the journey that I went through to become a community mental health clinician, this is my professional path. You know, that's one of the things that's really critical, is a lot of these young people who are coming up don't even know how to get to where they need to get to. And so, you know, that's another kind of part of this. 

And then, there's the faculty element that people at the universities, these, you know, university supervisors, they say, "Well, I don't need to be in your directory, either. I don't need supervisees." But they need to be in the directory, too, because they, again, need to show the path to the next generation of how to get there. Someone said to me the other day, "Amy, can you do a course on how to become a university professor?" I'm like, "No." That'd be a great idea, like, I am one, and I don't have time for that. However, put a university supervisor at that task, let the next generation see that. 

So again, the Clinical Supervision Directory, again, fills that gap, not only serving as a connection superhighway for supervision seekers and supervisors, but also, as a mentor database to say, look at what you could become, because you don't know when you're 23 years old sitting in your university classroom what you can become, because you can't see it. And so, until you can see it until you can see that you are, you know, a Korean American student who has, you know, never been beyond Sacramento, and you can be such and such, and so and so somewhere else, like, you don't know what you can be until you can see it. And we've heard that echoed now for the last two years more than ever before. And so that's really what is growing. 

And again, two, like, putting experts in this as well, people who are experts at business growth, at documentation, at event planning, at other things in our field, group development, or, you know, working with groups or, you know, suicidal ideation, people that are experts in play therapy, and EMDR, those people, putting those people in this directory as a place to say, "Look, in our field, these are the people you're going to aspire to." That is us saying as a profession, "Look, here we are, this is how we want mental health to look." 

And if we want to say as a community of mental health clinicians that we believe mental health is this important, we have to elevate it as a profession, ourselves, because you know what? No one else is doing it for us, Patrick. It's not like Congress is out there saying, "Yay, rah, rah, you guys should make more money, because you're so good at what you do."

PATRICK CASALE: That's very true. It's very well said. And I like this approach, because it's so much more than just supervision. And, you know, that's the point of this, right? Is like, if you can show all of the different avenues of ways this career can kind of go, right? It allows people to know their options, it allows people to understand you don't just have to go to grad school, go into community mental health, work as a case manager. Like, there are so many paths, and there's so many exits off the highway, so to speak. 

And if we don't know those things, if we don't have good mentorship, if we don't know what is possible, or what our opportunities could be, it's really easy to have that tunnel vision of like, you know, I'm just driving down 95 and all I can see is that shitty McDonald's at the end of the road, you know, seven exits down. Because ultimately, I don't know any different, I don't know that I can go into career counseling, I don't know that I can be a college counselor, I don't know that I can, like you said, work with specific populations and specialize in specific people, and struggles, and issues. So, it's really important to highlight that because I think our profession does a really good job of almost undervaluing what we do in terms of our understanding of what we offer and how we can bring those skills to the table.

AMY PARKS: Exactly. You know, we sponsored a table at the ACES convention, which is the American Counselor Educator and Supervisors Conference, which is a division of the American Counseling Association, and that was back in October. And I did an interview with the President, the current President, whose name is Kent Butler. And he said very clearly and emphatically that the most important value to him, core value to him was mentorship. And I thought to myself, "Absolutely 100%." And I can't think of anything right now that is being developed on a national level by a clinician that speaks to mentorship more than this. And I thought, "Dude, you're sitting right next to it."

PATRICK CASALE: And do you jump in and like shamelessly self-promote and [CROSSTALK 00:15:21].

AMY PARKS: Yeah, basically, it's funny because, I mean, I'll just, you know, tell you, Patrick, that so I live in Alexandria, Virginia, which happens to be the home of dissociation. Because right outside of DC, they can use a DC address. So, ACA's Office is three blocks from my private practices office. So, I actually do have a meeting with them next week. And fingers crossed, I'm really hoping that they see what a partnership with the clinical supervision directory, and ACA, and other associations, you know, that we build up a bridge can do for our profession.

Because you know, I know that there are issues around this whole idea of, you know, what needs to be important to our profession, you know, getting clinicians into the field, trained by experienced professional supervisors in a seamless, efficient manner. I know that that keeps ACA up at night, I know that that keeps NASW up at night, I know that that keeps AMCA up at night and AMFT. I know it does, it has to. It should keep all of us up at night, because that's what we need to be doing to make sure that our communities are served.

PATRICK CASALE: Yeah and probably more importantly now than ever, with everything that our profession has been supporting with and enduring over the last couple of years, the realization that clinician burnout is so high.

AMY PARKS: Yeah.

PATRICK CASALE: If we don't have good mentorship, if we don't have good support, if we don't have sound supervision and guidance, it's really easy to say, "Fuck this, I'm going in a different direction, I'm not doing this anymore, I can't handle it." And for that burnout to just intensify day by day, sometimes hour by hour, to the point where I can't help the community, I can't even help myself, I can't even, you know, get through the day functioning as a human being let alone a mental health clinician. And I think that means the emphasis has to be really intentional then on having good sound mentorship, supervision, and guidance. 

And I think when we use the word supervision, it's great, but I think mentorship is so much more important in a lot of ways to just say, "We need someone to be guiding and mentoring newer clinicians in the field, newer therapists in the field, showing them the way and showing them that there doesn't have to just be one way to do it."

I wanted to ask you a question about this, because it comes up pretty often with the practice building and coaching that I do for newer clinicians who are coming out of grad school who would say 99% of the supervisors I've reached out to about going into private practice have shot me down saying that that's not something that they're willing to endorse. Do you have a lot of that in what you're creating? And what are your thoughts on that, in general, around newer clinicians going into group or private practice instead of the CMA trail?

AMY PARKS: Oh, well, gosh, I would actually say the complete opposite of that. You know, I would absolutely say, if you are entrepreneurial, and you have some risk tolerance, then I think you should absolutely go into private practice. If you don't have risk tolerance then you should maybe give yourself some time, because it's risky. 

And it's risky not in like you're going to be homeless and eat peanut butter and jelly, but it's risky in that it can be scary when you put yourself out there, and people don't necessarily know you, trust you, or like you yet. And so, that takes time. You know, in addition, you know, it's interesting, because I own the Clinical Supervision Directory, but I also own a private practice with 15 clinicians and three offices. And we've been open as a group practice for 10 years. I've been a clinician for 35 years or 30 years practically. And I worked in schools for 20 years, and so, I've been along the journey for a long time, and I teach at university, and I do a lot of things in the field. 

And so, I have these conversations all the time. And it took us a very long time to build our reputation. And there's still many times that people still, you know, don't know us or whatever, but it takes a lot to really have the backbone, to know that, you know, sometimes not everyone's going to like you, you're not going to have everybody right away, and you have to hustle, and you have to be willing to hustle, and you have to be willing to be vulnerable, and you have to be willing to be humble, and you have to be willing to take advice. 

But, you know, community mental health can also be an incredible growth experience where you're going to get clients that you may never see in private practice. And so, you may get some incredibly challenging cases and opportunities to work in teams with leadership that you may never get in private practice. So, I think there's super pros and cons. I just think it depends on, you know, what the spirit you have to work, where that comes from, you know? Like, what moves you? Like, do you want to work for someone else or do you really feel like you can do it on your own?

PATRICK CASALE: See, I like that response, because it's very different than the response that so many people often get. You're saying, basically, check-in with yourself and what drives you. You know, if you're risk-averse if you want to work for yourself? Sure, go ahead. That doesn't mean it's going to be an easy road. And I think most of my listeners would know, I will never say that being an entrepreneur is an easy road. 

I think a lot of therapists get discouraged because the supervisors they reach out to when they tell them, "Hey, I am risk-averse. I do want to work for myself, I do want to have this autonomy, I don't want to go into community mental health." And the response is, "Well, then you won't be prepared to be a clinician if you go straight into private practice, you won't be clinically sound if you don't go into community mental health."

And that's something that I hear very, very often from a lot of newer clinicians, is that's the response that they've been given. So, it doesn't sound like that's your perspective on that. And it's more so about, what do you want this career to kind of look like ensuring that you know that there are risks to being an entrepreneur, absolutely. And that it's not always going to be an easy day, that's for sure. And there are a lot of bumps along the road. But having really good quality, sound supervision, and mentorship is crucial so that you can get through those bumps in the road as well.

AMY PARKS: Yeah, and, you know, I am never going to endorse anything that isn't ethical, or that isn't legal in your state, or is it licensure bound, etc. And you know, one of the complications in this gap that we're talking about is how every state is so different. So like, for example, in Virginia, I have a number of supervisees that work with me because I started my own private practice after I was licensed, because in Virginia you can't collect money and not be licensed. That's against the rules. But lots of people try to figure out ways to loophole that and it kind of is in my mind looks like laundering money, but whatever. I don't do that. But you know, like you do you boo, boo, but I don't do that. 

You know, so lots of people come to me, specifically, because I'm not only a clinical supervisor, but I'm also a business person. And so, I have that acumen. And my husband owns a toy store, and we're very entrepreneurial in our family. And it's totally, like, cool with me. So, when you go to the clinical supervision directory, you're looking for, you know, does this person have like, business experience? Or, for example, you might look for does this person work with the elderly? This is an intern area, like, elder care is an area that interests me, or does this person work with children, or does this person have…?

Like, for example, when we were at a conference doing a display, a sponsorship at a conference, recently, a supervisee came up to us and said, "I recently had to stop supervision and I haven't had a supervisor for three months, because my supervisor kept misgendering me, and I couldn't take it anymore, even though I had corrected them numerous times." You know, that's not okay. And so, hello, what kind of profession are we in, you know?

And a lot of other things, you know, what about supervision in different languages, and cultural humility, and diversity, and there's so much missing in our sort of tapestry of what's available for supervision and so putting us all, not them, shutting us all in one place allows for this just beautiful place, sort of one-stop shop which, Patrick, we have never had.

PATRICK CASALE: That's an incredible, incredible offering to just say, hey, filter out based upon A, B, C, and D, right? 

AMY PARKS: Right.

PATRICK CASALE: And I imagine there's a finance filter too to figure out what people are charging for supervision too?

AMY PARKS: Good idea, but there isn't. 

PATRICK CASALE: No?

AMY PARKS: What you do is you put it in your bio. Like, we're figuring all these things out. I mean, 2022 is about being obsessed with the sight, 2021 was about not dying. But you know, it was about just trying to launch and getting people to know us. Now, I'm just obsessed with the site. 

So, we don't filter out the cost of supervision, but you can put your costs in your bio, but you can filter out almost all the other kinds of thing. You know, what are your areas of specialty? Where are your geographic regions? You know, what are your certifications, all kinds of different, like, areas and you can text me. You can message us, and say, "Hey, this is an area for me, can you make this a filter?" Absolutely, sure. 

You know, and the other thing people don't mention in terms of the entrepreneurial spirit, you know, as a clinical supervisor, yes, you do charge for clinical supervision. It is a subset of your income stream, and we all paid for it. I don't care what people want to tell you. It costs money to get supervised. It's the way it is. It's an income stream. And teaching is, too. So, you know, we offer CEs in our site and we pay faculty to teach from our site. So, you know, these are all ways of continuing to grow as clinicians.

PATRICK CASALE: Yeah, definitely. I know that's a big point of contention, is what do people charge for supervision. And in reality, there's going to be people who charge $50 for supervision, there's going to be people who charge several $100 for supervision. It really just depends. And I know there can be a lot of judgment thrown around about that in terms of accessibility. But I do believe that there are plenty of people who are doing what they want to do business-wise, because it is their time, it is their investment. Supervisors are invested in their supervisees and the outcomes. And there's liability there too and responsibility. So, we have to take all of that into consideration.

I know, for example, like, I'll give a shout out to my clinical supervisor at my group practice, who's a very good friend of mine, Jennifer Garrett, is one of the best clinical supervisors I've ever been around where I see her sending out articles, and podcasts, and checking in on her supervisees. And it's just completely different than the experience I got where it was like, literally, one time my supervisor fell asleep in supervision while somebody was talking-

AMY PARKS: Oh my God. 

PATRICK CASALE: …while she was looking at the window. And, you know, sometimes you have to kind of try a couple of different supervisors out too, to see what kind of style you kind of resonate with and what kind of approach you resonate with, just like provider choice with therapy, or doctors, or anything else. I mean, we have supervisory choice, too. So, I think that's really important for anyone listening who is newer in the field to realize that you do not have to stay with the supervisor that you've been assigned, or the supervisor you hired, who isn't getting your pronouns right, who isn't culturally sensitive. You can fire them, you can move on.

AMY PARKS: Exactly, exactly. And one of the things we want Patrick is like your clinical supervisor in your group practice, we want them in the directory, and then, we want your group practice as a partner enlisted under their bio, because when your group practice… here's another entrepreneurial thing, because you know, I can't stand it, because I love it. Your group practice links to the CSD, and the CSD links to your practice and raises both of our SEOs. So, that's another big deal is our website is national. We have gone from zero Instagram followers to 25,000 in six months. That's not an easy task with no… we're just little three little people doing this. I mean, we're just regular old folks, we're not Amazon, or our Jeff Bezos, or these big people out there doing massive things. We're just people that are trained as therapists. 

So, you know, we're hard, hard workers, but we know how to do this and we're getting it done. And so, you know, a high tide raises all ships, and that's really where we're focusing our energy, is to elevate clinical supervision, elevate all of our work to say this is a huge priority to say that we take this really seriously, so when you've got an amazing clinical supervisor like that, you say, "You need to be in the directory. I'm going to pay for your directory listing." And because this is so important to us, and then, our practice is going to be represented, and we're going to tell people, "We believe so much in clinical supervision that we made sure our people were represented in this."

PATRICK CASALE: Absolutely, it's a great point. It's a wonderful way to all build each other up too to support one another's journeys and vision. So, I think it's wonderful that, you know, this is multifaceted. One thing I have a question about, because I've seen this a couple of times, including with myself, I had a clinical supervisor in community mental health who never wrote hours down. She got fired, all of the hours that I did then disappeared prolonging how long it took me to get my clinical license. Do y'all have any tracking mechanisms within the supervision directory or anything to like help supervisees along those journeys sort that stuff like that doesn't happen to anyone else?

AMY PARKS: Yeah, so that's a really great question. We certainly have a few tools and that's part of what we're doing this year is adding to our toolkit, but we also are building some partnerships with some of those. There are a couple of different tracking tools that are built online. And we're building some partnerships with those. So, for example, like when you get a directory listing you can purchase for your supervisees a membership with these different kinds of tracking tools. So, I think that that's brilliant that you mentioned that, and I'm glad you brought that up, because it puts it back on my radar as something that's a definite need. 

But, you know, there are some easy-to-use tools for that. But I am glad you mentioned that as a reminder, because yeah, I think it's really important that everyone take responsibility for those kinds of things, it's certainly easy to forget. And I can't tell you how many people I know their supervisor disappears and they lose their hours or their supervisor disappears, they didn't get signed off on. 

And so, all of those things are things we talk about. We send out a weekly newsletter, too. So, I really encourage anyone to just sign up for our information. And we try to put little tidbits and tips about supervision, you know, just some things to just generally know about supervision, and for supervisors and supervision seekers in that, and on our Instagram, and on our Facebook, or social media we put all kinds of things like that to just say, "Hey, think about this, remember this, this is a good tip."

PATRICK CASALE: Great, cool. I'm glad you're addressing that, because you're right. I mean, supervisors disappear, they don't sign off on hours, they change jobs, they lose the paperwork. And all of a sudden, like, the supervisee is left scrambling trying to figure out who's going to sign off on hours that maybe they didn't complete it under them. 

You know, and I know some states still require paper charting. They don't have electronic portals like North Carolina's LCMHC board will only allow you to mail in your supervising logs and there's no portal to upload those into. So, it's just one of those wonky things, like you said, where state to state and even license type to license type. Everyone is doing things differently. So, it's really nice that you have everything under one roof. That sounds like a really fantastic offering. 

Yeah, I can tell how passionate you are. I mean, I've met you in person. And I know you really love this stuff, even if it started as a, "I don't want to do this." But now here you are. And it's like, "I didn't want to do this, but it's happening, and it's growing, and now it's either like I've got to be all in or I've got to get the hell out of the way." Right? 

AMY PARKS: Well, yeah, that's the thing. Like, I said to my accountant, "Does this have to really be like an LLC?" And she's like, "Uh." And now I've mortgaged my house, and here I am. So like, this is a big deal to me. And, you know, I won't half-ass anything, so I'm either all full ass or no ass. And so, I'm full assing, Patrick, and here we are. I mean, it is a really big deal to me. And, you know, I actually wish someone else had done it. I mean, I wish, you know, ACA had done it, or NASW, or someone else. 

And again, you know, there are a few other things, people that have sort of done something similar-ish, but I don't think anyone has done it like this nor as well or as comprehensively. I think that we're really leading the pack. And, you know, we're talking about it. And we're getting out there, and really walking the walk and talking to talk from supervisors to supervisors for across all mental health fields. So, that's really the key.

PATRICK CASALE: Very well said, I love it. I love it. And I hope everyone that needs supervision or knows of a colleague who does or is just working in the field can really check this resource out and share it with people who would definitely be needing this, especially, newer graduates and people coming into the field, that's going to be really important for them to know that they do have options, and have choices and that their career doesn't have to be one-directional. 

Amy, just tell us where we can find this information and how they can access it. And we're going to put this in the shownotes for everyone that's listening as well, so you can go from it directly from the link as well.

AMY PARKS: Absolutely, I will. And Patrick, you know, we need you in there as an expert in private practice building. So, I'm going to send you a link to your own free directory listing as soon as we get off this phone call so that you can set that up because people need to find you as an expert in private practice building.

PATRICK CASALE: Thank you.

AMY PARKS: So, that will be outstanding for people to be able to connect with you in the CSD. So, look for Patrick there as well, but in North Carolina. So, in the meantime, however, you can find us at clinicalsupervisiondirectory.com, which is the whole big long word, clinicalsupervisiondirectory.com. And we're also on Facebook, and Instagram, and LinkedIn at Clinical Supervision Directory, so…

PATRICK CASALE: Very, very cool. We will have that in the show notes, clinicalsupervisiondirectory.com. And make sure that you check it out, you know, get your supervisor on that site, share it with people that you know, really ensuring that the next generation of mental health practitioners has guidance, and mentorship, and support, and really applauding the fact that the work that we do is really fucking hard and we can only do that work if we have good mentorship, and guidance, and an ability to process things in a healthy way for not only us but our supervisors as well. I want everyone to just write that down, check it out, make sure to share it. 

And for everyone listening, this is another episode of the All Things Private Practice Podcast. You can listen to new episodes every Monday morning. Listen, download, like, subscribe, and share everywhere you listen to podcasts. 

If you want to find more of my information on coaching, retreat building, courses that are coming up, you can go to allthingspractice.com or join my Facebook group All Things Private Practice and we will see you next Monday.