School Counselors’ Lived Experiences in Supervision

Supervision for practicing school counselors is integral to their professional growth and development (ASCA, 2019a). This is delivered through three modes of supervision as administrative, programmatic, and clinical with researchers identifying administrative as the most prevalent mode of supervision delivered as evaluation by school administrators (Perera-Diltz & Mason, 2012). However, school counselors have stated that they want access to programmatic and clinical supervision (Sandifer et al., 2019). Derived from a synthesis of the related literature, a Suite of Supervision (SoS) was proposed that integrated the three modes, identified appropriate supervisors, and provided focus areas for professional growth and development through supervision. To further investigate school counseling supervision, school counselors’ lived experiences in supervision were explored through a phenomenological study. Semi-structured interviews were completed with eight licensed school counselors with an average of 16 years of experience and who had participated in at least two modes of school counseling supervision. Moustakas’ (1994) modification of Van Kaam’s methods guided data collection and analysis to uncover the textural and structural descriptions of how each participant experienced the phenomenon of supervision. A process of reduction and elimination of the horizontalizations was used to identify emerging subthemes within each of the themes aligned to interview questions as (a) professional growth and development, (b) supervision experience, (c) understanding of supervision, and (d) impact of Covid-19 on supervision. The essence of supervision for these participants was a bridge between what they do and who they are as school counselors. Implications for practitioners, counselor educators, and researchers are included.

Keywords: supervision, school counseling, modes of supervision, professional growth and development