Training Public Sector Clinicians in Competency-Based Clinical Supervision: Methods,Curriculum, and Lessons Learned

This article describes an initiative to train public sector clinicians in competency-based clinical supervision. It was delivered as an 18-session course taught online to clinicians employed in departments of behavioral health in nine Southern California counties. The curriculum was co-constructed by a team of clinical supervision scholars and leaders who then served as instructors. Each two-hour meeting addressed a specific topic for which a training video had been prepared, usually featuring a member of the training team who had expertise in that topic. The second part of each meeting focused on a class member’s supervision case presentation. Those presentations revealed 35 themes; the four most frequently occurring were: developing supervisees’ clinical competencies, addressing countertransference and parallel process, balancing clinical and administrative supervisory roles, and addressing record keeping/paperwork. Participants’ pre-to-post supervisory self-efficacy changes demonstrated a moderate effect size (Cohen’s d?=?.46) for the training, with the greatest pre- to post-training changes being in the use of technology, multicultural competencies (awareness of oppression, bias, and stereotyping in clinical work and in clinical supervision), and contracting. They reported that the strengths of the course included an inclusive learning environment and opportunities to reflect on and apply new knowledge and skills, though they also reported struggling with the assignments and the course platform software. Lessons learned reflected the use of technology in this online program, the importance of obtaining buy-in from agency decision makers and being prepared to address challenges related to the use of direct observation in supervision, gatekeeping, and enacting the simultaneous roles of administrative and clinical supervisor.

     

Correction to: Training Public Sector Clinicians in Competency-Based Clinical Supervision: Methods,Curriculum, and Lessons Learned

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-021-09504-9     

Development and preliminary validation of the Paediatric Awareness Questionnaire for children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury

There is a lack of validated measures for assessing self-awareness of deficits after pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI). The current study aimed to develop and examine the psychometric properties of the Paediatric Awareness Questionnaire (PAQ), and investigate factors related to self-awareness. The PAQ was administered to 32 children aged 8–16 years with mild to severe TBI (72% male, M age = 11.75, SD = 2.9), their parents, and treating clinicians, and to 32 age- and gender-matched typically developing controls and their parents. Children with TBI and their parents also completed the Knowledge of Injury Checklist (KIC), and parents completed the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21. The PAQ was found to have fair to excellent (α = .79–.97) internal consistency for all versions across both groups and good concordance between parent and clinician total scores (ICC = .78). There was also evidence of convergent validity between the PAQ and KIC for both child (r = ?.45, p < .05) and parent ratings (r = ?.66, p < .001). Poorer self-awareness was significantly related to younger age at injury for the TBI group and lower parental education for the total sample. ANCOVA identified that children with TBI demonstrated significantly poorer awareness than controls after controlling for parental education. Children with TBI typically overestimated their functioning compared to their parents, whereas typically developing children tended to rate their functioning lower than their parents. These findings provide preliminary support for the reliability and validity of the PAQ for assessing self-awareness after pediatric TBI.     

Expertise-related differences in conceptual and ontological knowledge in the legal domain

Little research has been conducted on expertise-related differences in conceptual and ontological knowledge in law, even though this type of knowledge is prerequisite for correctly interpreting and reasoning about legal cases, and differences in conceptual and ontological knowledge structures between students and between students and teachers, might lead to miscommunication. This study investigated the extent and organisation of conceptual and ontological knowledge of novices, advanced students, and experts in law, using a card-sorting task and a concept-elaboration task. The results showed that novices used more everyday examples and were less accurate in their elaborations of concepts than advanced students and experts, on top of that, the organisation of their knowledge did not overlap within their group (i.e., no “shared” ontology). Experts gave more judicial examples based on the lawbook and were more accurate in their elaborations than advanced students, and their knowledge was strongly overlapping within their group (i.e., strong ontology). Incorrect conceptual knowledge seems to impede the correct understanding of cases and the correct application of precise and formal rules in law.     

Unique and Joint Effects of Sexual and Racial Harassment on College Students' Well-Being

An analysis is presented of issues involved in the differences noted between female and male leaders of mixed-sex groups. After surveying some of the different types of reactions of followers of both sexes to female or male leaders, this paper calls attention to such contributing factors as the nature of the group task, attitudes of leader and followers toward appropriate sex roles, and the criterion measures used. Implications for future research are derived and discussed.     

Empathy,Awareness of Others,and Action: How Feeling Empathy for One-Among-Others Motivates Helping the Others

Feeling empathy for a member of the group may result in either favoring this individual at the expense of the group or helping the entire group. We explain these intriguing findings by proposing that the combined influence of feeling empathy for one individual and awareness of others enhances willingness to help both the individual and the others (taken as individuals). The results of three experiments showed that inducing empathy for one individual promotes favoring him or her at the expense of the group, whereas inducing empathy for one-among-others leads to helping these others individually, instead of as a group. Furthermore, the awareness of others mediated the proposed one-among-others effect.     

Sex differences in theory of mind: A male advantage on Happé's “cartoon” task

It is a commonly held stereotype that women show superior performance on tests of social cognition such as face processing and theory of mind (ToM) compared to men. However, such purported differences have not been empirically tested. In this study 40 healthy men and 40 women matched for age and years of education completed a well-known experimental ToM test requiring the attribution of either physical or mental states (Happé's cartoon task). Men showed superior performance compared to women, with a medium effect size, on both the mental state and physical state cartoons. It is suggested that men may use a cognitive systemising strategy during these tasks. The results emphasise the task-specific nature of sex differences in social cognition and necessitate future work to elucidate individual differences at the interface of cognitive and affective processes.     

The brain circuitry of syntactic comprehension

Syntactic comprehension is a fundamental aspect of human language, and has distinct properties from other aspects of language (e.g. semantics). In this article, we aim to identify if there is a specific locus of syntax in the brain by reviewing imaging studies on syntactic processing. We conclude that results from neuroimaging support evidence from neuropsychology that syntactic processing does not recruit one specific area. Instead a network of areas including Broca's area and anterior, middle and superior areas of the temporal lobes is involved. However, none of these areas appears to be syntax specific.     

Development of an instrument for measuring different types of cognitive load

According to cognitive load theory, instructions can impose three types of cognitive load on the learner: intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load. Proper measurement of the different types of cognitive load can help us understand why the effectiveness and efficiency of learning environments may differ as a function of instructional formats and learner characteristics. In this article, we present a ten-item instrument for the measurement of the three types of cognitive load. Principal component analysis on data from a lecture in statistics for PhD students (n = 56) in psychology and health sciences revealed a three-component solution, consistent with the types of load that the different items were intended to measure. This solution was confirmed by a confirmatory factor analysis of data from three lectures in statistics for different cohorts of bachelor students in the social and health sciences (ns = 171, 136, and 148), and received further support from a randomized experiment with university freshmen in the health sciences (n = 58).