In 2018, about five years into my school counselling experience, I was a member of a three-person counselling team in a large high school where we juggled significant responsibility for administrative tasks such as course selection and timetabling, while trying to keep up with the growing mental health support needed by our students. It was a busy office, and we were all stretched thin, sometimes barely having time to say good morning to each other at the start of the day before we were caught up in the daily whirlwind of crises. Midway through that year, one of the counsellors on that team was investigated by our employer, and then subsequently disciplined for committing a serious ethical violation. The violation was the classic boundary violation that we all learn about in our Master’s degree programs, the one that warns you that you must not take these students home with you, no matter how difficult their home lives may be. You must always resist the pull to play the hero. My colleague succumbed, for whatever reason, to that pull, and brought a young student home to live with her for a couple of weeks, and as a result, she was subjected to a grueling investigation and had disciplinary action taken against her. We never discussed what happened. My colleague was moved to another school, and in the wake of that office-shaking situation I began to ask myself how it was possible that a counsellor with more than 20 years’ experience could make such an error. What went wrong?
School counsellors play a critical role in supporting the emotional and mental well-being of students, and in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic, children and adolescents have experienced notable increases in both depression and anxiety (Miao et al., 2023) thus increasing the time school counsellors are necessarily engaged in supporting mental health. The role of school counsellor is one which has yet to achieve clear professional identity across the country, but it seems obvious that the role is shifting toward far greater demands on school counsellors to provide mental health counselling that is both effective and evidence based. While traditional school counsellors focused more of their efforts on providing academic and career counselling support, dramatic changes within our schools have necessitated a shift toward addressing far more complex mental health needs than ever before. This increased focus on mental health counselling underscores the urgent need for school counsellors to receive clinical supervision, a critical element that is not currently uniformly mandated across Canada.
The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, in agreement with our provincial regulatory bodies, emphasizes the importance of clinical supervision for all counsellors to comply with their ethical guidelines and standards (Shepard et al., 2016).
Supervision provides a structured environment for counsellors to reflect upon their work, receive constructive feedback from a mentor, and develop new skills. Through supervision, counsellors can discuss evidence-based practices, update their understanding of best practices, and receive support with the emotional demands of their role. Supervision plays a protective role against secondary trauma and burnout (Beks & Doucet, 2020), is pivotal in enhancing counsellor self-care (Shepard et al., 2016), and supervision provides counsellors with a safe space to discuss ethical dilemmas (Bernard & Goodyear, 2014) thus preventing ethical violations like boundary crossing, dual relationships, confidentiality breaches, cultural insensitivity, failure to report, and improper documentation. As noted by Laletas (2019), ethical issues arise in school counselling more so than in other counselling settings, as school counsellors manage the needs of their student clients while also attempting to balance the needs of competing stakeholders, including: parents, teachers, school administrators and community members. Without clinical supervision, it seems inevitable that ethical decision-making will pose challenges. When I consider the situation that occurred with my colleague, I am acutely aware that this could have been prevented if she had been receiving clinical supervision.
While school counsellors commonly engage in peer supervision and consultation, these activities do not meet the definition of supervision provided by Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, “a formal arrangement between a clinical supervisor and supervisee to embark on a supervisory relationship and process” (CCPA, 2021, p. 114). Supervision in schools is generally limited to administrative supervision, which tends to be focused on organizational issues, school policies, and administrative tasks that contribute to the overall functioning of the school. What is neglected by administrative supervision is a specific focus on the counselling work being done in schools, and guidance around professional issues and ethics. Administrative supervision does not address the support school counsellors should receive to engage in reflective practice, receive feedback, and enhance their clinical skills. Regular, structured discussions focused on counselling techniques, ethical decision-making, and self-care, should be an ongoing part of all counsellors’ professional development. Additionally, as immigration to Canada continues to rise, school counsellors bear a responsibility to continually develop and assess their own multicultural competency. Each client’s unique cultural identity must be considered within the context of the counselling process, and this requires school counsellors to continually reflect upon their biases and develop strategies for supporting students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Supervision provides this platform for honest self-reflection and discussion of cultural issues.
While the value of supervision is self-evident, there are barriers to its implementation in school settings. Time constraints make it challenging for school counsellors to manage their heavy caseloads, manage their administrative responsibilities, and have time left to engage with supervision during their workday. This is compounded by systemic obstacles including the prohibitive cost of supervision and the cost of reducing caseloads to allow more time for supervision to occur. There may be a perceived lack of need for supervision among school counsellors, connected to a lack of understanding about the benefits it provides. When I think of my colleague and her situation, I think about the many entry points that exist in supervisory conversations to discuss countertransference, burn-out, secondary traumatic stress, and other emotional tolls that interfere with clarity in the ethical decision-making process. With supervision, whatever was happening with my colleague could have been addressed and mitigated long before it resulted in an ethical violation, and long before it changed the trajectory of her career.
I argue that the cost of not having clinical supervision is too great a cost to pay. Without supervision, our school counsellors are somewhat adrift when challenging situations arise, and no counsellor is immune to making a bad decision without guidance and support. Bad decisions can result in harm to the clients we serve, who are vulnerable minors, and who also deserve to receive services that are ethical and supervised. School districts should be responsible for including counselling supervision in their budgets, and provincial ministries should be required to fund this appropriately. Schools need to allocate time and financial resources to support regular supervision of their counsellors. We can advocate for this by promoting awareness with our administrators, helping them to understand how supervision benefits the effectiveness and sustainability of their school counselling programs. However, with the understanding that school counsellors arrive at work with a variety of professional qualifications and needs, experiences and backgrounds, a one-size-fits-all solution is not realistic. Rather than waiting for school districts, governments, and counselling regulating bodies to agree, school counsellors need to organize themselves to make a commitment to seek and receive clinical supervision. In the absence of available resources, peer supervision is the next best thing. School counsellors can take proactive steps to address the gap by forming their own networks and support groups dedicated to prioritizing ongoing learning and ethical practice. These networks can facilitate regular meetings where school counsellors discuss cases and provide mutual support.
As evidenced by my own experience with my colleague, without structured supervision, even experienced counsellors can make mistakes as they navigate the complexities of their heavy responsibilities and the emotional toll of the work. Integrating clinical supervision into the fabric of school counselling is a professional imperative, and it is also a moral one, ensuring that counsellors are adequately equipped to commit to best practices and to make sound ethical decisions, safeguarding the wellbeing of the minor clients who depend on us.
By: Lisa Porter, CCC, former school counsellor, current Associate Director at City University M.Ed. School Counselling program
References
Beks, T., & Doucet, D. (2020). The role of clinical supervision in supervisee burnout: A call to action. Emerging Perspectives, 4(2), 36-50. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ep/article/view/68138
Bernard, J., & Goodyear, R. (2014). Fundamentals of clinical supervision (5th ed.). Pearson.Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. (2023). Clinical supervision. https://www.ccpa-accp.ca/professional-resources-2/clinical-supervision/
Laletas, S. (2019). Ethical decision making for professional school counsellors: use of practice-based models in secondary school settings. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 47(3), 283-291. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2018.1474341
Miao, R., Liu, C., Zhang, J., & Jin, H. (2023). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Journal of Affective Disorders, 340, 914-922. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2023.08.070
Shepard, B., Martin, L., & Robinson, B. (Eds.). (2016). Clinical supervision of the Canadian counselling and psychotherapy profession. Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association.