The Colorado Counseling Association is made up of more than 1,400 members throughout the state of Colorado. We are so grateful to serve each member! 

 

The mission of the CCA is to serve its membership by promoting legislative advocacy efforts, education resources, and professional resources offered to its members.

 

 

What's in this newsletter:

 

Please find all of this important information below. If you have any questions, or any information to share, please email us at: info@ColoradoCounselingAssociation.org

 

Thank you from all of us here!

The supervisory relationship is essential for effective learning in supervision and it needs to be built on trust. The supervisor and the supervisee need to find each other dependable, because without trust, the supervisory alliance will not be successful (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019). It is quite reasonable to expect a supervisor to be trustworthy, but not many supervisees consider how they come across. Just like supervisees expect to find a competent supervisor who is trustworthy and knowledgeable, supervisors also have expectations of their supervisees.

 

While they understand that supervisees need a bit of hand holding and are likely to have many questions about situations they’ve never encountered before, supervisors expect their supervisees to be problem solvers. By the time they start internship or their pre licensure candidacy, all supervisees have had a level of instruction that deemed them at least minimally qualified to handle many of their client needs. However, all supervisees have a certain level of anxiety in handling new situations. Managing this anxiety is an important part of the process of building trust with the supervisor. Supervisees will want to use self-reflection and even counseling support to manage their anxiety outside the supervisory relationship.

 

Supervisors appreciate supervisees who are flexible and open to feedback. The supervisory relationship is by definition a relationship in which the supervisor provides a lot of corrective feedback. Openness to corrective feedback is an important attitude that all supervisees will want to embrace. If the supervisory relationship is based on trust, supervisees can push back on anxious thoughts and cognitive distortions, and assume good intentions on the part of the supervisor. Accepting that a certain level of discomfort when receiving feedback is natural can be a great precursor to growth. After all, we expect our clients to do just that – deal with emotional discomfort in their process of growth.

 

When receiving corrective feedback, a good supervisee will maintain a stance of openness and initiative. While positive feedback is more desirable, research shows that corrective feedback correlates positively with self-efficacy (Holstun, et al., 2021). Thus, corrective feedback should be expected and anticipated in supervision. Although it may be difficult at times to accept the feedback of the supervisor, supervisees have a responsibility to at least consider it and reflect on it before making the decision to reject it (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).

 

Finally, good supervisees are self-driven and proactive, and seek opportunities to improve without always counting on the supervisor to point out the direction. Cultivating an attitude of lifelong learning can go a long way in seeking opportunities for growth and improvement. Following up on the feedback received and taking the initiative to seek new challenges, opportunities, and learning experiences will support the development of new and advanced counseling skills.

 

In conclusion, a strong supervisory alliance is built on trust. That is why it is important for supervisees to self-reflect on their own attitudes and behaviors. Being intentional about becoming a problem solver who takes initiative and is proactive can go a long way in building a trusting relationship with the supervisor. Openness to corrective feedback and cultivating a lifelong learning attitude will also strengthen the supervisory alliance and in the end, benefit not only the supervisee, but their clients as well.

 



Bernard, J. M. & Goodyear, R. K. (2019). Fundamentals of clinical supervision (6th ed.).

Pearson.

Holstun, V. P. & Bohecker, L. (2024). Humanistic principles for providing culturally sensitive

corrective feedback in supervision. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/johc.12215

Holstun, V., Rigsbee, N., & Bohecker, L. (2021). Encouragement is not enough: Perceptions and

attitudes towards corrective feedback and their relationship to self-efficacy. Teaching and Supervision in Counseling Journal, 3 (3) https://doi.org/10.7290/tsc030302

 

The Colorado Counseling Association is requesting proposals for conference sessions. The 2024 CCA Conference Lineup contains two events, both of which are currently accepting proposals through May 5th, 2024.

 

The Foundations Student Conference, uniquely for Students and Counselor Educators, will be held on August 21st, 2024, at the Keystone Resort. This event specifically targets counselors-in-training enrolled in mental health graduate programs. Event registration is restricted to students and counselor educators. However, there are no restrictions on who may submit a proposal. Proposals should directly support the training, development, and learning of counselors-in-training.

 

The Annual Conference will be held on August 22nd – 23rd, 2024, at the Keystone Resort. This two day conference is open to all mental professionals to attend and present at, and includes admittance to our keynote event, featuring Khara Croswaite Brindle as our 2024 Keynote Speaker.

Mark your calendars now to attend the 2024 Annual Conference in beautiful Keystone! The student conference is Wednesday, August 21, followed by the general conference Thursday and Friday August 22 and 23. You can early register now for the conference.

 

In addition, we are seeking volunteers to help with the conference as well as help with other aspects of the CCA. If you would like to volunteer for the conference or to help with other CCA events, please complete this form. 

The Colorado Counseling Association (CCA) represents all  professional counselors in Colorado through training, legislative  efforts, and advocacy. The success of the counseling profession in Colorado and the strength of the CCA are dependent upon each other.

Members of the CCA receive discounted access to conferences, trainings, and continuing education courses. Additionally, the CCA has partnered with CPH to offer reduced malpractice insurance rates to all members, including students.

How can you get involved? 

Students 
• Attend the Foundations Student Conference. 
• Present at the Foundations Student Conference. 
• Help pass legislation by working on the Legislative Committee. 
• Inform other counselors by working on our monthly newsletter. 
• Support CCA initiatives by volunteering on the Administrative 
Leadership Team. 

Counselor Educators 
• Encourage students to get involved. 
• Attend the Foundations Student and Annual Conference. 
• Present at the Foundations Student and Annual Conference. 
• Run for a position on the CCA Governing Council. 
• Write an op-ed or sit on the Editing Committee for the monthly 
CCA Newsletter. 
• Invite the CCA to come speak to your students!

 

For more information and to complete the questionnaire that links you to the various ways of getting involved, click here. 

Make sure you understand any insurance carrier obligations required of you before opting out of Medicare. Some insurers, such as TriCare, require you to accept Medicare as a condition of staying credentialed with them. If you have opted out of Medicare and then for insurance contractual reasons, or you change your mind and need to opt back in to Medicare, you have 90 days from your effective opt out date to opt back in. To opt back in, you will need to send a fax to Novitas at 877-439-5479 asking to opt back into Medicare.

As counselors, we are always looking for resources that we can recommend to our clients and we want to hear your ideas. If you would like to submit a resource, application, workbook, or other tools, please send them to us at newsletter@coloradocounselingassociation.org and tell us why this resource works for you and your clients. 

 

This month’s feature resource is the Veterans Administration’s PTSD Coach.

 

The PTSD Coach is a free application that clients can download from their App Store on their phones. The PTSD Coach is designed to give clients quick coping strategies, find resources, learn from the experts, and track their progress. There is no account registration needed and the app doesn’t share information. The clients control their data. For example, one section on the app helps to manage symptoms and includes 8 areas to track such as being reminded of the trauma, avoiding triggers, being disconnected from people and reality, feeling sad or hopeless, worried or anxious, angry, and unable to sleep. Each area then has recommendations to help the client such as a progressive muscle relaxation exercise that talks the client through an eight-minute relaxation exercise. There is also a tool section with 25 different tools a client can use as well as add their own tools.

The CCA newsletter committee is always looking for contributors to the newsletter, either with editing articles, content ideas, and writing articles. If you are interested in learning more about how you can be a part of the newsletter committee, please send an email with your interest to newsletter@coloradocounselingassociation.org and we’ll get back with you as to how you can get involved. As an added incentive, your participation can count toward your Professional Development Hours (Independent Learning and Volunteer Service) for your LPC license renewal and for your CV.