Trauma-Informed Cross-Cultural Supervision Ethics

Cultural responsiveness training gaps for mental health clinicians have always been evident. Over the years, many domestic and global events have pressed the mental health field to truly wrestle with the realities and ramifications of this gap in much more visceral and concrete ways. For ethically bridging this gap with training and oversite, dual responsibility falls to both graduate program and community-based clinical supervisors. The Cross-Culturally Responsive Practice Mindset: A Civility-Centered Developmental Model, seeks to fill this gap for supervisors and their supervisees, with a concrete developmental and application-based frame related to self- and supervisee assessment, intervention, and growth. The model's purpose is to provide clinical supervisors with a practical model for fostering a cross-culturally responsive-practice mindset in themselves and in their supervisees as they work with the trauma experienced by marginalized clients of diverse backgrounds.

In addition, supervisors must realize that supervisees of color may struggle with trauma similar to that of their clients of color. The skill required of supervisors in ferreting out its potential presence and impact on clinical service provision must be intentionally developed in order to safeguard the emotional and psychological states of their supervisees and the clients they serve. This reality means that supervisors are tasked with ensuring their own culturally responsive engagement within the supervision relationship, as well as assisting their supervisees in understanding how to shape the parallel culturally responsive engagement that should occur between supervisees and their clients.

Using an interactive group format, this workshop focuses on ways supervisors can effectively approach ethical, culturally-rooted, and trauma-informed case conceptualization, intervention, and supervision. Participants will explore ways to engage in meaningful and therapeutic conversations surrounding race, culture, the intersection of identities, and the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression that influence supervision and counseling relationships. Clinical teams are encouraged to attend together.

Level of Audience: Intermediate, Advanced

• NBCC Clock Hours: 6 Ethics or Supervision

Learning Objectives

1. Keys to rapport building and supervisory intervention success between diverse supervisors and supervisees
2. Clarify developmental language and foci needed for personal and supervisee development of a culturally responsive mindset.
3. Develop steps for clearly approaching culturally rooted, and trauma-informed case conceptualization in supervision.
4. Apply the understanding of worldview and racial identity to ethical supervisee development and clinical case conceptualization.
5. Determine key factors in fostering ethical, culturally humble, and clinically helpful conversations around race and diversity in supervision.
6. Apply professional codes of ethics in the area of multicultural competence and supervision.
7. Utilize case conceptualization guides to enhance intervention effectiveness in multicultural supervision.

Schedule for the Day

8:30 - 10:00 am - Session 1

10:00 - 10:15 am - Break

10:15 - 12:00 pm - Session 2

12:00 - 1:00 pm - Lunch

1:00 - 2:30 pm - Session 3

2:30 - 2:45 pm - Break

2:45 - 4:00 pm - Session 4

ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Sonja A. Sutherland is the Founder and Chief Clinical Training Officer for Legacy Changers Training Institute for Mental Health Equity & Justice.

Dr. Sutherland is a Clinical Associate Professor at Adam State University. Before beginning her tenure there, Dr. Sutherland served at Richmont as an Associate Professor, the Dean of Assessment, Planning, and Accreditation overseeing programmatic and institutional accreditation, and was the Inaugural Director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. She also served as a Core Faculty member at Walden University.

She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Georgia, a Board Certified Telemental Health Counselor (BC-TMH), and an Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS). Dr. Sutherland is also a member of the American Counseling Association (ACA), the Association for Multicultural Counseling & Development (AMCD), the Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors (ACES), and the Licensed Professional Counselor Association of Georgia (LPCA-GA). Dr. Sutherland earned her Ph.D. (Counselor Education and Supervision) from Regent University, Masters of Science (Professional Counseling) from Georgia State University, and Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from New York University.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Sutherland is the founder and CEO of Legacy Changers Worldwide, an organization dedicated to providing family education and mental and emotional wellness resources. The Legacy Changers Worldwide umbrella has provided support through the Legacy Changers Counseling Center, The Family Healing Room, and previously as host of a local Atlanta talk-radio show focusing on family relationships and mental wellness. In addition, Dr. Sutherland provides intermediate and advanced continuing education workshops and post-masters supervision through Legacy Professional Development & Training.

Experience

In the mental health field since 1998, and licensed since 2001, Dr. Sutherland has provided therapeutic services in private practice, psychiatric residential, in-home, and outpatient mental health settings, for adolescents and adults, through individual, group, couples, and family therapy. She has specialized in working with adolescents, couples, and families for the last 25 years. One of Dr. Sutherland’s historical research interests has been evidence-based treatment within residential settings for commercially sexually exploited youth, which was a primary focus of her clinical expertise during her years as a clinician in the psychiatric residential setting. Her ongoing research interests include clinician-in-training cultural competence development and clinical supervision. Within the last 10 years, Dr. Sutherland has provided training, researched, and published in the areas of racial trauma, cultural competence development and training, the provision of culturally-informed clinical intervention and supervision, and social justice advocacy. Dr. Sutherland’s primary clinical practice currently centers on providing clinical supervision services to post-masters clinicians pursuing licensure.

During her years in the field, Dr. Sutherland has also served as a Director of Mental Health and Clinical Services for mid – large-sized outpatient mental health organizations providing therapeutic intervention in the Cobb, Atlanta, and Stone Mountain areas. In this capacity, Dr. Sutherland provided strategic and financial direction, administrative oversight, and accountability for clinical service provision, as well as clinical supervision for mental health professionals providing services to the community at large. Dr. Sutherland has been an Adjunct Professor at Kennesaw State University, and during the last several years has been involved in ongoing training of undergraduate and master’s level students entering the field. Dr. Sutherland provides clinical supervision services to clinicians pursuing licensure.

During the last 35 years, Dr. Sutherland has served as a guest lecturer, trainer, and presenter for various organizations including PESI, Kaiser, ESPYR, Telehealth Certification Institute, the Georgia Psychological Association, and many others. She has presented regionally and nationally at professional counseling associations such as ACA, ACES, SACES, ASERVIC, CAPS, GCCA, AMHCA, and LPCAGA. Additionally, she has worked with social, civic, educational, and clinical organizations such as the University of Georgia, the Foster Families Treatment Association, the Woman’s Missionary Union of New York, the Women’s Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Office for School Counselor Advocacy, Elite Women of Excellence, local churches, and various mental health agencies.