SDACES - South Dakota Counseling Association

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South Dakota Association Counselor Education and Supervision

Message from President

Greetings SDACES Members,

I was reappointed to president of SDACES after Chris Roseman (president-elect for SDACES) was required to step into the president office for SDCA. As part of my reassignment to the presidency, I believe it is important to increase the influence and size of our organization. To this end, I want to continue to offer supervision workshops free to SDACES members and affordable to all counselors inside and outside of SDCA. In order for a stronger counseling profession, I believe that strong supervisor skills are needed when supervising counselors completing training or moving toward licensure.

In the past year, SDACES has offered two supervision workshops in the state at a reduced price or free for SDACES members. This year I would like to offer a supervision workshop for school counselors as well as the traditional pre-conference supervision ethics workshop at the SDCA conference. The workshop for school counselors has its presenter in place, Dr. Kelly Duncan, but a date is still be determined. The pre-conference workshop will occur during the SDCA conference in April 2009.

In addition to these two workshops, and the main focus of this letter, is to present to SDACES members the possibility of earning the Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS) certification offered through the Center for Credentialing and Education (an affiliate of NBCC). The impetus of the ACS is a national effort by the NBCC to strengthen the position of counselors. It is hoped and believed that counselors desiring licensure in counseling would need to be supervised by an approved supervisor, one who has received training in counselor supervision. While this movement is in its infancy, I think South Dakota could be on the ground floor of this movement and advance the cause by increasing its number of ACS certifications among licensed counselors in the state. The ACS, at the moment, is easy to obtain for counselor educators (usually counselor educators have taken a clinical supervision course during their doctoral training), but similarly easy for master level practitioners.

Those without a graduate course in clinical supervision can obtain the certification by completing 30 contact hours of training in supervision topics. SDACES has secured approval from the CCE to provide a series of 2-3 hour workshops to address these various supervision topics. These workshops would be offered at various times over the next 12 months or so in different cities across the state. It is my vision that this series of workshops would be offered on a yearly basis. Not only would SDACES members receive the training for free and earn CEUs for their investment of time, but they will also have the freedom to decide how quickly they want to pursue the certification (doing it all in one year or picking up parts over a longer period of time).

To read more about the ACS go to www.cce-global.org.

I am excited about this upcoming year and hope to hear from you soon.

Seth Olson
Seth Olson, Ph.D., LPC, NCC
SDACES President
Seth.Olson@usd.edu

Purpose
The purpose of SDACES is to first and foremost advance counselor education and supervision in order to improve professional counseling services in all settings. To that end, the organization is charged with the duty of providing continuing education activities for counselor educators and supervisors to assist them in enhancing their skills. Other duties include provide a system of information exchange, promote supervision research, provide public with information concerning the counseling profession, and advance the profession of counseling in legislation.

Definition of Supervision
Supervision is an intervention provided by a more senior member of a profession to a more junior member(s) of that same profession. The supervisory relationship is evaluative, 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, and serving as a gatekeeper for those who are to enter the particular profession. Supervision includes roles of teaching, counseling, and consultation, but is not exclusively those roles. Supervision is more than just being a seasoned counselor. It embodies strong counseling experiences and skills as well as strong understanding of supervision theory and developmental processes, ethics specific to supervision, and a clear understanding of evaluation methods.

SDACES bylaws

Membership

ACS link
http://www.cce-global.org/credentials-offered/acs

ACES link
http://www.acesonline.net/index.asp

Resources
Ethical Guidelines for Counseling Supervisors (document)

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South Dakota Association Counselor Education and Supervision