Best Practice Considerations for Clinical Supervision With Supervisees With Disabilities/Disabled Supervisees

Abstract

While counseling professionals have placed increasing focus on intersectional identities and marginalization, disability—particularly within clinical supervision—has often been overlooked. In response, the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA) established a Task Force in 2022 to explore best practices for supervising supervisees with disabilities. The ARCA Task Force conducted an a priori conceptual content analysis and Delphi study with subject matter experts (N = 30) comprising clinical supervisors (n = 23) and disabled supervisees (n = 7) to identify the knowledge, attitudes, and skills for effective clinical supervision with supervisees with disabilities. Results showed no statistically significant differences among most items, indicating alignment between clinical supervisor panelists and supervisee panelists regarding the importance of the identified guidelines. However, some expert opinions differed, with statistical significance (p ≤ .05) between clinical supervisors and disabled supervisees on three guidelines, suggesting that these aspects were considered more important by disabled supervisees than supervisors.