Are you a member yet? Membership is open to all and is the first step towards accreditation.
CBT programmes accredited at Level 1 provide the same quality of clinical supervision as courses accredited at Level 2. There may be a different quantity of supervision, and this varies between individual courses.
Every Level 1 programme provides a minimum amount of supervision that each graduate will achieve. If an individual achieves more than this minimum during their training, the course will provide confirmation of those additional hours.
All supervisors on our accredited courses must be BABCP accredited.
To meet accreditation requirements, you must have received at least 40 hours of clinical supervision altogether. There must be a minimum of five hours’ clinical supervision for each of eight training cases.
During a Level 1 accredited course, you will meet the requirements for a specified minimum number of these cases and must meet the rest of the Minimum Training Standards outside the course to become accredited.
The key principle is that supervision meets your needs as a supervisee. You may need more supervision depending on the clients that you are seeing, the course and your stage of training.
Clinical supervision may be one-to-one or in groups of no more than four. You must have opportunity for individual supervision.
We use a formula to calculate individual ‘equivalent’ clinical supervision hours received when in a group setting -
The total time spent in the group is divided by the number of supervisees. This time is then doubled.
Example one - four supervisees in a group for two hours -
2 hours divided by 4 = 30 minutes then x2 = 1 hour each.
Example two - three supervisees in a group for 1 hour 45 minutes -
1 hour 45 minutes divided by 3 = 35 minutes x 2 = 1 hour 10 minutes each
Example three - a group of two supervisees are able to ‘count’ all of the time spent in supervision as equal to individual supervision hours.
Supervision of your clinical practice must include working with diversity and personal development needs. Clinical supervision is most effective when it includes ‘live’ or ‘close’ supervision as well as other methods such as role play or modelling.
You must receive ‘close’ or ‘live’ supervision. This is when your supervisor observes your clinical practice either by observing a session as it happens or reviewing a recording.
To meet all the Minimum Standards for accreditation, three of your closely supervised cases must be assessed to show that you are competent. A complete treatment session must be marked using a validated CBT skills assessment scale such as the CTS-R. The assessor must be trained in using the scale. The level one programme that you complete will specify a minimum number of the ‘closely’ supervised cases you will complete
You can find more information on our Close Supervision Guidelines.
There must be close supervision in at least 50% of your supervision sessions during training. Complete clinical sessions or extracts will be reviewed eg – a section where an issue came up in the relationship or a particular technique is used.
Other supervised cases can include ‘non-closely supervised’ ones. They must meet all of the criteria above except for formal live assessment.
You must have a CBT clinical supervision contract. This will include the agreement between you and your supervisor, on how your supervision needs will be met.