Overview of the Supervisor Certification

CCPA’s two certifications, Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) and Canadian Certified Counsellor – Supervisor (CCC-S) are different from membership. The Supervisor Certification is meant for Certified Professional Members of CCPA (CCCs) who provide clinical supervision to other clinical professional counsellors.

Obtaining the status of Canadian Certified Counsellor – Supervisor (CCC-S) includes recognition of standards of professional credibility of clinical supervisors, continuing education, and a formal code of ethics. As a non-statutory self-regulating body, CCPA provides advice and discipline for members on matters of professional conduct

Overview of Supervision

Supervision is a specialty within the overall practice of counselling and psychotherapy and is perhaps one of the most important components in the development of a competent practitioner.  It is within the context of supervision that trainees begin to develop a sense of their professional identity and to examine their own beliefs and attitudes regarding clients and therapy (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2007, p. 360).

Clinical supervision is “an intervention provided by a senior member of a profession to a more junior member or members of that same profession.  This relationship is evaluative and hierarchical, extends over time, and has the simultaneous purposes of enhancing the professional functioning of the more junior person(s); monitoring the quality of professional services offered to the clients that she, he, or they see; and serving as a gatekeeper for those who are to enter the particular profession” (Bernard & Goodyear, 2009, p. 7).

Once new practitioners complete their graduate programs, they begin an often challenging transformative process, moving from being anxious novices towards becoming confident and competent counsellors/psychotherapists*. Moving beyond this first stage to becoming professionally proficient depends upon the work of highly capable and committed clinical supervisors who provide their counsellor supervisees with appropriately tailored levels of guidance, instruction, and support. Much of the burden of ensuring competence, both clinical and legal, falls on the clinical supervisor during the supervisee’s training. The supervisor’s ability to impart the attitudes, values, knowledge, skills, approaches, and traditions of counselling/psychotherapy will be thoroughly tested.

Supervision Certification Fees

Certified membership with CCPA (when striclty holding the CCC designation) costs $245 annually, comprised of a $185 membership fee plus a $75 certification fee. The initial CCPA supervisor certification evaluation fee is $150. The Annual Renewal fee is $35. The total annual fees to maintain both the CCC and CCC-S designations is $295.