The primary means by which our transition into a professional status occurs; the transformational link to various stages in our professional acculturation. Guides, informs, regulates, and expands a supervisee's professional worldview through dissonance and reintegration.

Extends one's conceptual knowledge in graduate school to readiness for practice as a degree recipient and one's competency as a novice to readiness for licensure and independent practice.

Supervision

1. Acculturation in Procedure and Law
2. Advanced Practice
3. Applied Decision Making for Ethical Care
4. Competence in Due Care
5. Preparation for Independent Practice

1. Research & Best Practices
2. Skills Development
3. Collaboration
4. Review of Ethical & Legal Obligations
5. Procedural Compliance
6. Person-of-the-Therapist

1. Developmental Duties
2. Evaluative Duties
3. Protection Duties through Vicarious Liability

1.  Institutional, Professional, & Personal Layers of Values

2.  Legitimate, Expert, & Referent Forms of Power

1. Professional Identity
2. Insight for Client Care
3. Maturation for Interaction w/ Peer Professionals

1.  Informed consent, confidentiality, and protection in a qualitatively different relationship

2.  Cultural sensitivity and respect, honesty, and respect for difference

3.  Documentation, goal-setting, monitoring of progress, and adjustment when needed

4.  Appropriate termination, follow-up, and launching

Professional Identity of the Supervisor

a)  Transparency and informed consent w/ clients served by supervisee

b)  Limits and special considerations of liability insurance for the supervisor and supervisee

c)  Confidentiality in supervision

d)  Interruption in supervision and emergency supervision needs

e)  Concerns about role changes when a faculty member agrees to serve as a supervisor to a former student

Established in 1983, regulates requirements for approved supervisor designation w/in the AAMFT where the approved supervisor is one who has received

• advanced recognition for clinical skills
• special training
• experience in supervision of prospective MFTs
• meets the highest standards of clinical education and practice

Commission of Supervision

(now the Supervision Committee)

Taylor et al (2007) observed the need for integrating diversity dimension in supervision as an issue of significance for AAMFT-approved supervisors. In this regard, the authors noted that the continued professional development of supervisors is essential for identifying and expanding gaps in knowledge and skills.

Therefore, in order to retain their status, AAMFT requires that approved supervisors...

Licensure

Established professions are self-regulating, through which they gain public acceptance and respectability. However, professions are also regulated through legal processes assigning licensure as a symbol of competence to practice the profession.

________ in all states controls the practice of medical and legal professionals.

Statutory Law

1.  is designed to protect the public by establishing minimum standards of service

2.  is designed to protect the public from ignorance about MH svcs

3.  increases the likelihood that practitioners will be more competent and their services better distributed and thus more available

4.  upgrades a profession

5.  allows a profession to define for itself what it will and will not do

• a unique designation

OR

• a unique array of actions 

Title Law

Practice Law

In some states, "omnibus" legislation has been enacted so that MFTs are licensed along w/ social workers, MH counselors, school psychologists, art therapists, and/or other MF professions w/in the same law.

Such legislation often leads to the establishment of ___________, composed of public members as well as members representing the various disciplines authorized under the legislature.

Composite Licensure Boards

Autonomous or Discipline-Specific Licensure Boards

1. what and who are covered
2. what the requirements are to qualify for licensure
3. how the licensure process works

1. Prohibitions
2. Exemptions

a)  advertise the performance of MFT or couseling service by him/her

b)  use a title or description denoting that the person is a MFT

c)  practice MFT

1) is practicing MFT as part of his duties as an employee of

• a recognized academic insitution or a federal, state, county, or local government institution/agency
• an organization which is nonprofit and determined by the Board to meet community needs

2) is a MFT intern or person preparing for practice of MFT under qualified supervision

3)  has been issued a temporary permit by the Board to engage in the activity for which licensure is required

1.  Educational requirements: a Masters or Doctoral degree in MFT from a recognized educational insitution, or a graduate degree in an allied field from a recognized educational institution and graduate level coursework equivalent to a Master's degree in MFT, as determined by the Board

2.  Experience requirements:  successful completion of two calendar years of work experience in MFT under qualified supervision following receipt of a qualifying degree

The AMFTRB has developed and provides the Examination in Marital and Family Therapy (EMFT) to assist in licensure boards and agencies in evaluating the extent to which applicants possess the knowledge for entry-level professional practice.

The specific practice domains assessed by the EMFT include: (5)

1. The Practice of MFT
2. Assessing, Hypothesizing, and Diagnosing
3. Designing and Conducting Treatment
4. Evaluating Ongoing Process and Terminating Treatment
5. Maintaining Ethical, Legal, and Professional Standards

MH professionals are part of the upper strata of the social structure of US society. Their status is partly due to the fact that they are among the best-educated members of society. However, their status is also partly due to their assumption of responsibility for public welfare.

Such responsibility begins with a commitment to ethical principles that support social values such as: (2)

1. Justice
2. Autonomy

1.  active participation in on'es professional development

2.  actions to enhance the status and support base of the profession through

• research
• continuing education
• intraprofessional relationships and service