Report Type: Provider Resource Toolkit
The Clinical Supervision Implementation Guide (2nd Edition)
YEAR
2025
AUTHOR / ORGANIZATION
NM Health Care Authority
GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE
Statewide (New Mexico)
What is this?
This is the second edition of a clinical supervision implementation guide developed by an interdisciplinary team of New Mexico behavioral health professionals from various organizations including UNM Division of Community Behavioral Health, Tierra Nueva Counseling Center, All Faiths, El Puente de Encuentros, New Mexico Behavioral Health Services Division, and Mental Health Resources, Inc. The guide updates the 2018 first edition to address changes in telehealth, tele-supervision, integrated health, cultural humility, interdisciplinary practice, documentation, and ethics. The methodology involved convening experienced supervisors and clinicians from across New Mexico to compile local practice wisdom, national research, licensing board regulations, and best practice guidelines from professional organizations including the American Psychological Association, Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, National Association of Social Workers, and SAMHSA. The guide is organized into twelve sections covering supervision relationships, formats, provider types, New Mexico regulations, supervision models, ethics, high-quality practice, clinical writing, documentation, and integrated healthcare.
Summary
This guide directly supports behavioral health systems change by addressing critical workforce development needs in New Mexico. It provides supervisors with frameworks for developing competent clinicians across disciplines, including the growing certified and credentialed professional workforce. The guide’s emphasis on cross-cultural supervision and multilingual supervisee support addresses disparities in service access, particularly relevant for Bernalillo County’s diverse population. The interdisciplinary supervision guidance supports integrated care models and helps address provider shortages in underserved areas through expanded supervision options. The documentation and ethical standards sections establish quality benchmarks for clinical practice. For systems planners, this guide offers a roadmap for standardizing supervision practices across agencies, supporting workforce retention through quality supervision relationships, and ensuring providers at all levels receive appropriate professional development. The detailed licensing board requirements and supervision regulations help agencies maintain compliance while building capacity. The focus on certified and credentialed professionals recognizes the expanding behavioral health workforce beyond traditional licensed clinicians, supporting peer services and community-based care models critical to systems transformation efforts.
BH Systems Change Recommendations
**How This Report Informs Systems Change** This guide does not contain explicit systems change recommendations but provides essential infrastructure for workforce development that enables systems transformation: 1. **Standardize Supervision Quality**: The detailed supervision models, documentation requirements, and ethical guidelines provide a framework for agencies to standardize supervision practices across the behavioral health system. 2. **Expand Workforce Capacity**: The comprehensive coverage of certified and credentialed professionals, including scope of practice tables and supervision requirements, supports integrating peer support and community health workers into service delivery. 3. **Address Language Access**: The guidance on supervising multilingual supervisees—including recommendations for same-language supervision, training, and equitable caseloads—provides actionable strategies for addressing the shortage of Spanish-speaking and other multilingual providers. 4. **Support Rural Access**: Tele-supervision guidance enables expanded access to qualified supervision in rural and frontier areas where licensed supervisors may not be available locally. 5. **Enable Interdisciplinary Teams**: The detailed interdisciplinary supervision rules by license type support the integrated care models and collaborative teams needed for comprehensive behavioral health services. 6. **Reduce Turnover**: The emphasis on high-quality supervision relationships, burnout prevention, and professional development supports workforce retention—a critical systems issue.
How to Use for Systems Planning
**What this report IS useful for:** - Training new clinical supervisors on foundational supervision principles and New Mexico-specific requirements - Understanding scope of practice and supervision requirements for certified and credentialed professionals - Navigating interdisciplinary supervision regulations across different licensing boards - Developing agency supervision policies and contracts - Supporting multilingual and multicultural supervision practices - Understanding documentation requirements for both clinical services and supervision sessions - Identifying supervision models appropriate for different supervisee developmental levels **What this report DOES NOT provide:** - Workforce data or gap analysis for Bernalillo County or New Mexico - Funding mechanisms or billing guidance for supervision services - Recommendations for system-level infrastructure or governance changes - Crisis system protocols or specific intervention guidelines - Evaluation metrics for supervision program effectiveness - Regional or county-specific implementation considerations
Key Facts & Data Points
- New Mexico ranks third in the United States for proportion of multilingual residents, with nearly one-third speaking another language in addition to or other than English - Most commonly spoken languages in New Mexico are Spanish and Diné (Navajo) - Over 40 different languages are spoken in Albuquerque's International District - Burnout rates are higher than average for Spanish-English bilingual providers - The guide covers 12 distinct sections of supervision practice - Multiple licensing boards regulate behavioral health in New Mexico including: Psychologist Examiners, Social Work Examiners, Counseling and Therapy Practice Board, Medical Board, and Board of Nursing - Certified and credentialed professionals (C&CPs) include: Community Health Workers, Prevention Specialists, Certified Peer Support Workers, Certified Family Peer Support Workers, and Community Support Workers - LCSW requires 90 hours of supervision over 2-5 years plus 3,600 practice hours - LPCC requires 100 hours of supervision over minimum 2 years plus 3,000 client contact hours - Group supervision allowed for most licenses with groups no larger than 6
Priority Services & Findings
**SUD Organizations** - Licensed Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counselors (LADAC) require 50-200 hours of supervision and 1,000-3,000 client contact hours depending on education level - Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors (CADC) require 300 hours of supervision in 3 years and 2,000-6,000 hours of supervised alcohol and drug counseling work - Licensed Substance Abuse Associates (LSAA) provide services under guidance of LPCC, LMFT, LPAT, or LADAC supervisors - New Mexico Credentialing Board for Behavioral Health Professionals oversees alcohol and drug counseling certifications - Interdisciplinary supervision allowed for SUD providers with appropriate experience in alcohol and drug counseling **Mental Health / Crisis Care** - Certified Peer Support Workers (CPSWs) can provide education and support around substance abuse harm reduction - Some CPSWs are employed in Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) clinics with Narcan training - Crisis intervention is within scope of practice for multiple certified and credentialed professionals - The guide emphasizes safety planning and case formulation as supervisor responsibilities **Integrated Primary Care** - Section 11 covers clinical supervision and integrated healthcare - Community Health Workers (CHW) can provide linkage to resources, navigation, screening, and care coordination - The guide addresses supervising across disciplines common in integrated settings - Emphasis on whole-person care in single settings with recommendations for addressing client physical health in any setting **School-Based / Youth Services** - Certified Youth Peer Support Workers (CYPSW) require 40 hours supervised work for certification - CYPSW supervisor training available through NMSU Center of Innovation (9-hour training) - Certified Family Peer Support Workers (CFPSW) require 40 hours supervised work - Certified Wraparound Facilitators (CWF) require 18 months of training, coaching, and observation
Immediate Actions for Systems Planners
-Distribute this guide to all clinical supervisors across behavioral health agencies in Bernalillo County as a standard reference for supervision practice. -Conduct an inventory of current supervision practices across agencies to identify gaps between current practice and guide recommendations, particularly regarding certified and credentialed professional supervision. -Develop or update agency supervision policies to align with the licensing board requirements detailed in Section 5, ensuring interdisciplinary supervision arrangements comply with regulations. -Assess multilingual supervision capacity and implement recommendations for supporting Spanish-speaking and other multilingual supervisees, including same-language supervision or mentorship arrangements. -Create pathways for supervisors to obtain approved supervisor status with relevant licensing boards, using the CEU requirements outlined in the guide. -Establish tele-supervision protocols for agencies to expand supervision access, particularly for supervisees in underserved areas of the county. -Integrate certified and credentialed professional supervision into existing clinical supervision structures, using the scope of practice guidance to ensure appropriate oversight. -Incorporate supervision documentation templates and clinical writing standards from Sections 9 and 10 into agency electronic health records and quality assurance processes.
Key Contacts
**/ - Lisa Morad-McCoy, LCSW, UNM Division of Community Behavioral Health -+ lmmccoy@salud.unm.edu **/ - Jen Panhorst, LCSW, UNM Division of Community Behavioral Health -+ jpanhorst@salud.unm.edu **/ - Denise Moore, LPCC, Tierra Nueva Counseling Center -+ denisemoore@swc.edu **/ - Sonya Briones, LPCC, All Faiths -+ sbrionesparks@allfaiths.org **/ - Brenda Quiñones-Cortés, LCSW, El Puente de Encuentros -+ elpuentedeencuentros@gmail.com **/ - Marie Weil, PsyD, ABPP, Independent Practice -+ mariecweil@gmail.com **/ - Betty Downes, PhD, NM Behavioral Health Services Division -+ betty.downes@hca.nm.gov **/ - Lacy Keith, LPCC, Mental Health Resources, Inc. -+ lkeith@mhrnewmexico.com **/ - John Birkey, Mental Health Resources, Inc. -+ jbirkey@mhrnewmexico.com **/ - Autumn Drags Wolf, LCSW, Nizhoni Counseling, LLC -+ adragswolf@nizhonicounseling.org **/ - National Latino Behavioral Health Association = - NM Children Youth & Families Behavioral Health Services (NMSU Center of Innovation) = - NM Credentialing Board for Behavioral Health Professionals **/ - NM Highlands University Bilingual/Bicultural MSW program = - NM Office of Peer Recovery & Engagement = - NM Regulation & Licensing Division = - NM Recovery Project (CCSS training)