I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about clarifying the specific steps for evidence-based supervision. It turns out, some people are confusing the entire supervision protocol with behavior skills training, which is one step of the supervision routine. So lets review the protocol for evidence-based supervision.

Step one:

Identify desired client outcomes. This is where you explain the client’s goals to the supervisee so they understand the purpose of the programming.

Step two:

The supervisor has to specify what the staff person must do for the client, to meet these goals. This includes the actual behavioral strategies that need to be learned, along with any other details that would support the client’s progress, such as being on time because the transition from the bus to the classroom is important.

Step three:

Training staff to perform the necessary interventions. This is where behavior skills training (BST) comes in. BST is its own process. We can use it with parents or staff in the supervision protocol but it’s also the recommended way to teach staff new skills. BST is also a multiple step process so yes, in the multiple step supervision process, one of the steps employs another multi-step process– behavior skills training.

Now you have completed the BST steps. You have taught the skills. The staff is now performing these skills with actual clients. Which takes us to step four of evidence-based supervision.

Step four:

Once they’ve learned the needed skills through the steps of BST, we now have to include on-going monitoring to make sure that everything is going smoothly, the client is progressing, staff are performing proficiently.

Step five:

If staff are performing proficiently, and clients are improving, then that’s where the best part comes in: Supporting proficient staff performance. That means reinforcement which is not simply just a couple of random “good job’s”. There’s a whole way that positive feedback should be delivered. This step is all about empirically validated feedback delivery for proficient performance. It’s always a good day when you get to deliver praise.

Step six:

Now a less great day is when we have to deal with correcting non-proficient staff performance. Sometimes, people need a little support and a review of what is needed to fulfill their job tasks. When you monitor on a regular basis, you’re going to see those things that may need feedback and employ a course of action if changes are needed.

Technically, I’m done, but there’s more because there’s continuous monitoring and feedback.

Step seven:

Continuously evaluating staff performance and client outcomes is why the job of a supervisor is never done.

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