04/01/2025

Enhance Your Supervision Skills with the NCDA Career Practitioner Supervision Training Curriculum

By Tina Peterman and Brian Hutchison

Whether you supervise career practitioners or aspire to take on this role, the newly revised NCDA Career Practitioner Supervision Training is the pathway to becoming a more effective and ethical supervisor. This curriculum is designed to equip career development practitioners with the essential knowledge, skills, and frameworks needed to guide new professionals, develop experienced practitioners, and contribute to the growth of the career development field. Completion of the training meets one of the core criteria necessary to obtain the NCDA credential, the Certified Supervisor of Career Practitioners (CSCP; formerly known as Certified Clinical Supervisor of Career Counselors, CCSCC).

Why Is This Curriculum Essential for Career Practitioner Supervisors?

Those who engage in the curriculum will:

• Gain a foundational understanding of supervision: The curriculum clearly defines and differentiates between administrative, coaching, and clinical supervision, enabling you to tailor your approach to various work settings. You will also understand the specific skill domains of career practitioner supervision including knowledge and skill evaluation, professional improvement, client service quality, and ethical gatekeeping.
• Recognize the crucial importance of supervision: Learn how effective supervision directly contributes to practitioner competence, client service effectiveness, ongoing learning and growth, and ethical accountability within the profession. The curriculum addresses the specific supervisory needs of all career service providers, including career counselors, coaches, advisors, and managers, as well as service providers in human resources and development, workforce education, social work, and vocational psychology.
• Navigate ethical complexities with confidence: A dedicated module focuses on ethics in supervision, emphasizing the NCDA Code of Ethics (2024). You will explore common ethical dilemmas, learn to analyze ethical issues and master an ethical decision-making process, ensuring the well-being of both supervisees and their clients.
• Become empowered with essential communication skills: Develop and enhance your attending and listening skills, which are crucial for building strong supervisory relationships. Learn advanced techniques such as personalizing, influencing, focusing, and drawing inferences to deepen supervisory conversations and feel confident in communicating effectively.
• Embrace multicultural competence: Understand the critical interplay of cultural differences, worldview, and power dynamics in career practice and supervision. The curriculum provides techniques to help supervisees embrace cultural diversity and encourages self-awareness of their biases.
• Comprehend the key components of effective supervision: Explore the ten essential components for supervising career practitioners, including supervisory relationships, counseling skills, case conceptualization, assessment skills, resources, and ethical considerations. This comprehensive understanding will make you feel secure and ready for supervisory challenges.
• Feel accomplished with powerful supervision models: Learn about and apply valuable models such as the Discrimination Model, which clarifies your roles as teacher, counselor/coach, and consultant across different supervision focus areas. You will also be introduced to the Integrative Developmental Model (IDM) to understand supervisee growth across various professional domains. This knowledge will make you feel successful and competent in your supervisory role.
• Initiate action steps to engage with the theory: The curriculum covers essential practical aspects, including planning for supervision, understanding supervisory styles, and the administrative side of supervision, such as informed consent and record-keeping. You will also learn about goal setting and the crucial role of formative and summative evaluation in supporting supervisee development.

When will the New Curriculum Debut?

The Career Practitioner Supervision Curriculum is a 45-contact-hour learning experience delivered in a cohort model to practitioners with any level of experience. Up to 30 qualified participants will be accepted in the first cohort, scheduled to begin in the summer of 2025. They will receive the new student manual and the NCDA monograph, “Clinical Supervision of Career Development Practitioners”. The cost is $2200.

The Summer Cohort will include the following:

• 12 hours of in-person training immediately prior to the 2025 NCDA Global Career Development Conference in Atlanta, GA.  These in-person sessions will meet:
  • Monday, June 16, 2025 from 1:00-6:00 pm
  • Tuesday, June 17, 2025, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm with one hour for a lunch break.
• 9 hours of asynchronous preparation before the in-person training to be completed at your convenience between June 3 and June 15, 2025.
• 24 hours of synchronous and asynchronous online training and group supervision to be completed between June 23 and August 31, 2025.

Those interested in joining the 2025 Summer Cohort should complete the online application process by May 1, 2025, at www.ncda.org or contact Dr. Tina Peterman (tpeterman@pdx.edu) or Dr. Brian Hutchison (globalcareerguy@gmail.com) to learn more.

Ready to Explore and Elevate Your Supervision Practice? 

Investing in this curriculum will enhance the practitioner’s supervisory skills and contribute to developing competent and ethical career practitioners, ultimately strengthening the entire career development field. This can lead to certification, which offers additional benefits, such as the validation of professional qualifications as well as transparency for heightened consumer confidence. Engage now in the NCDA Career Practitioner Supervision Training Curriculum and unlock your potential as an impactful and effective supervisor.

Tina Peterman, Ph.D., LPC, CSCP, is a Professor at Portland State University, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Oregon, and a Certified Supervisor of Career Practitioners. With over two decades of expertise as a Counselor Educator, her focus lies in Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling and School Counseling. Beyond academia, Tina operates a private practice, offering identity-based supervision to career and mental health counselors who specialize in assisting individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses. Her contributions extend to numerous publications in career counseling and disability studies. Tina is passionate about training career development professionals globally to enhance career development for clients with disabilities. She can be reached at tpeterman@pdx.edu 

Brian Hutchison, Ph.D., LPC, CSCP, is Core Faculty of Clinical Mental Health Counseling in the School of Counseling at Walden University, USA. He received his doctorate degree in Counselor Education & Supervision from Pennsylvania State University and has worked as a career, school, and mental health counselor and clinical supervisor. Brian’s career consultation and education work operates within the brand of Global Career Guy where he specializes in consultation, research, speaking, and training focused on how career development fosters mental health well-being, school engagement and social justice. He has worked in more than 50 countries and written more than four dozen publications and including the 12th Edition of School to Career, a career textbook for high school students and International Practices of Career Services, Credentials, and Training monograph. He can be reached at globalcareerguy@gmail.com