Assessing Eligibility to Provide Clinical Supervision

This is typically defined as having five or more years of experience working psychotherapeutically with clients. The five years of experience can be counted from the time you began working psychotherapeutically with clients. It is not dependent on when you graduated and/or became registered with a regulatory body: you can include experience prior to either of these events, if you were working psychotherapeutically during that time.

Please consult the supervision requirements in your jurisdiction.

• College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario
• College of Nurses of Ontario
• College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario
• College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
• College of Psychologists of Ontario
• Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers

The five years of experience can be counted from the time you began working psychotherapeutically with clients. It is not dependent on when you graduated and/or became registered with a regulatory body: you can include experience prior to either of these events, if you were working psychotherapeutically during that time.

If you are registered with CRPO:

Please go to the Public Register and search for your name. Check if the “Status” field says “Authorized for independent practice”.

If any other status is shown (e.g. “Authorized to practise while working toward independent practice”), select “No”. Please see the Updating Clinical Experience Hours page linked in Related Resources below, for information on meeting the independent practice requirement.

If you are registered with a college other than CRPO:

Please use your professional records and judgement to determine whether you have completed 1000 direct client contact (DCC) hours and 150 hours of clinical supervision within the scope of practice of psychotherapy.

Directed learning can include course work, supervised practice as a clinical supervisor, individual/peer/group learning, and independent study that includes structured readings.

CRPO is not able to recommend or pre-approve directed learning activities related to clinical supervision. For information on selecting appropriate directed learning activities, please see the guidance on the Supervision Requirements page.

CRPO may request documentation to confirm that you have completed 30 hours of directed learning activities in providing clinical supervision.

Please see the definitions on the Supervision Requirements page. You will be asked to confirm your understanding of these definitions each time you sign an attestation form.

You appear to meet the criteria

This tool is intended as a resource to aid individuals in assessing whether they meet the clinical supervisor criteria. It does not serve as advice, an opinion, or evidence of whether clinical supervision hours provided by this individual will be accepted toward CRPO registration requirements. All clinical supervision hours are assessed by CRPO on a case-by-case basis.

According to the information you have provided, you appear to meet the criteria to provide clinical supervision for the purposes of registration with CRPO. You do not need to contact CRPO for approval to provide clinical supervision; you can begin supervising at any time.

Submitting confirmation of hours to CRPO

Your supervisees can submit clinical supervision hours to CRPO moving forward. They will ask you to fill out forms to confirm the hours that occurred (see the Resources section below). Your supervisees will then submit the forms to CRPO for review. As a clinical supervisor, you will not typically submit any confirmation forms to CRPO directly.

Each form is reviewed by staff to confirm that the hours reported meet all requirements. For example, staff will verify that clinical supervision was in relation to approved direct client contact hours. Staff will also confirm whether you are in good standing with your regulatory body, as applicable. Your supervisees will be notified if any hours are not accepted.

Please see the Updating Clinical Experience Hours page for more information on the process of submitting hours for review, including common errors that will delay processing.

Additional documentation

Upon request, you should be able to provide your supervisees with a letter attesting to your competence in providing clinical supervision, as set out in the preceding questions and on the Supervision Requirements page. CRPO staff may request evidence of the 30 hours of directed learning in providing clinical supervision if you practise in Ontario. Staff may also request a letter of verification and/or a statement describing your approach to providing clinical supervision. It is not necessary to submit these documents to the CRPO unless they are specifically requested by staff.

Designations and titles

CRPO does not approve clinical supervisors or grant the designation of “supervisor” or “clinical supervisor”. RPs should not use titles such as “CRPO-approved supervisor”, “CRPO clinical supervisor”, or “RP-S”.

You do not appear to meet the criteria

This tool is intended as a resource to aid individuals in assessing whether they meet the clinical supervisor criteria. It does not serve as advice, an opinion, or evidence of whether clinical supervision hours provided by this individual will be accepted toward CRPO registration requirements. All clinical supervision hours are assessed by CRPO on a case-by-case basis.

According to the information you have provided, you do not appear to meet the criteria to provide clinical supervision for the purposes of registration with CRPO. Supervision that you provide will not be accepted toward meeting CRPO registration requirements. Please review the clinical supervisor definition if you wish to work toward becoming eligible to provide clinical supervision in future.