You must be able to show a minimum of 1½ hours of supervision a month for all practice that you include, and provide details of your most recent or current arrangements.
Supervision hours
You can use face to face, phone or online supervision. You can combine individual, group and peer supervision to meet the minimum requirement, based on the following formula. Do not count the ‘facilitator’ or ‘group supervisor’ for group supervision. For peer supervision, count all members of the group.
For groups of:
- four supervisees or less, claim half of the time
- five supervisees or more, divide the number of hours by the number in the group and claim the resulting time
We won't accept supervision time that has been averaged out over the year to meet the requirement. Arrangements such as one hour every three weeks or two hours every six weeks won’t meet the requirement, unless combined with another supervision arrangement.
If you work in more than one setting, each must be supervised, but you do not need to have 1½ hours supervision for each setting.
Each period of practice submitted in the practice log must be covered by a minimum of 1½ hours of supervision per month.
If you have more than one arrangement with the same supervisor (for example, you have the same supervisor for individual and group supervision), you must provide details for each arrangement or for any amendments to your contract.
You may miss some supervision sessions due to holiday or sickness but the contract must remain in place. If you're likely to miss more than one session in a row, you should consider putting in place new or temporary arrangements. You can't include ad-hoc arrangements in your application.
Tips on completing the online form
When filling in the supervision section, make sure all your practice is covered by a supervision arrangement.
You'll need to have a separate supervision record for each entry you've listed in both the current practice and practice log sections. For example, if you have two entries in current practice and three in practice log you'll will need five entries in your supervision section. This may mean you need to enter the same supervision details more than once.
If you're not sure which of your records refers to which entry, go back to your current practice and practice log sections and make sure each entry has a unique identifier, for example, Private practice A, EAP B.
Your supervisor
Your supervisor does not need to have a specific supervision qualification or be a registered or accredited BACP member. They should be adequately qualified or experienced as a counsellor or psychotherapist and to supervise your work.
If your supervisor is also your line manager, or there is another type of dual relationship, you must be able to show that you have access to another supervisor or supervision arrangement should the need arise.
Further guidance on supervision, including dual relationships can be found in our Good Practice in Action resources and Ethical Framework.
Your supervisor report
You need to provide a report from your current supervisor and also:
- the supervisor that supervised your case material (criterion 9), if not your current supervisor
- your previous supervisor, if you've been with your current supervisor for less than six months
We'll contact all the supervisors you list to confirm that they complete the report in support of your application.