Supervising Beyond Technical Skills: Professionalism, Communication, and Clinical Judgment

Why Technical Skill Alone Does Not Make a Competent Clinician

Most supervision plans are built around technical work. We teach people to run assessments, take data, and write programs. We are careful and specific about all of it. Donovan said the other half of the job gets far less care. Communication, time management, organization, flexibility, and collaboration also decide whether someone works well.

People tend to call these soft skills. The name makes them sound optional. They are not. A supervisee (someone learning under your guidance) can pass every technical checklist. They can still freeze on a phone call with a parent. Learning the science is only part of the job.

The trouble is that we expect these skills to grow on their own. Donovan said that does not always happen. People get moved into clinical and supervisory roles with almost no practice in hard conversations. Expectations are often never stated out loud. What seems obvious to one person may not be obvious to someone raised somewhere else.

So the feedback turns vague. Someone says a staff member is so unprofessional. What does that even mean? You cannot teach to that, and the person cannot act on it. If the goal is independent practice, technical skill will not get someone there by itself.

Sometimes you call these soft skills interpersonal skills, professional skills.

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

The Awkward Questions Graduate School Never Covers

Donovan opened with her own early mistake. She was a new behavior analyst in the Boston area, at a center funded by a school district. After an IEP (a school's written services plan) was signed, the team had a short window to build the programs. Everything was written and printed by hand back then, so the window mattered.

A parent signed and called her to say: start now. Donovan told her about the two weeks. A colleague in the office said right away not to answer it that way. The parent called the clinic director. It got sorted out, but the lesson stuck for twelve years. She did not need all thirty programs running that day. She needed one thing ready so the child could start, and a calmer answer for the parent.

The rest of the talk built on that. Behavior analysts get asked many questions a day, and the technical ones are easy. We can explain assessment results, behavior functions, and recommendations. The harder ones sound like this: he does not do that at home. Grandma thinks he does not need applied behavior analysis (using learning science to change behavior). My child will be just like the doctor on that TV show. I do not need parent training. A therapist says a student is always late, so she will not arrive on time either. Nobody teaches those answers.

Wasn't the end of the world, but it was a really good learning opportunity.

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

Teach Professional Skills the Way You Teach Technical Ones

Donovan's fix is not a new curriculum. It is the teaching sequence you already use, pointed at a different set of skills. You show it, you do it together, then you hand it over. She uses that for report writing. She writes one section while they watch. Then they write a section and get feedback. Later they write a full report alone. The same steps work for a parent meeting or a staff issue.

That means making room for it on purpose. Invite the supervisee into meetings with other professionals. Let them watch you think out loud instead of just watching you talk. Use real situations from your own career, or planned scenarios. Donovan suggested keeping a running list of awkward things you have already handled. Respect ethics and confidentiality, and you will always have material.

She also pushed for more debriefing. Many teams debrief only after severe challenging behavior (behavior that can hurt someone). Do it after the good days too. What happened. What did you notice. What went really well. What would you do differently next time. Then set clear expectations for these skills so nobody is guessing.

Her sharpest point was about promotions. Nobody would put a brand new therapist in a session with no training. We do something close to that with newly promoted clinicians.

But I never really see clinics have strong supervisor trainings for people who are promoted within

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

Sentence Starters Your Supervisees Can Use Under Pressure

Donovan described a clinician she mentors who is strong technically and still struggles with families. Nothing she says is clinically wrong. The problem is the interpersonal side. So they worked on listening first. Do not get defensive. Do not rush to quote the ethics code or prove you are right.

The main tool is slowing the answer down. Let me double check that and get back to you. That one sentence would have saved Donovan's own phone call years ago. She made up an answer on the spot instead, and it was wrong.

She offered a few more short lines to hand out. I hear what you are saying, and I know this is not the answer you were hoping for. Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly, then repeat it back. For a priority fight, try this: yes, I hear you, and I have written that down. We will target it too, along with my priority of self-injury (behavior that hurts the person). None of that shuts the family down, and none of it promises something you cannot do.

Her framing was that it is often not what you say but how you say it. Take a beat. Most of our decisions can wait a minute. Remember that the family has a stranger in their home asking questions, and they may feel intimidated.

It's okay to say you don't know in the moment.

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

Coaching Clinical Judgment Without Handing Over the Answer

You cannot pre-teach every clinical scenario. So Donovan targets the decision process itself. Clinical judgment (deciding well when rules run out) is harder to teach than a data sheet. It is also much faster to just give someone your solution. That is the very thing that keeps them dependent on you.

Her alternative is coaching questions. What is the data saying. What are your options here. What are the risks. Then model your own thinking out loud. Here is what I see, here is what I am weighing, and here is why I am leaning this way. Add timing to the discussion. Is there urgency, or can we gather more information and consult first.

She was clear that good judgment does not mean copying her. Trying to make a supervisee act exactly like you is not the goal. There is often no single right answer. Let them try a reasonable approach, watch what happens, and adjust.

That has to be balanced against errorless learning (stopping mistakes before they happen). Donovan's rule is risk based. If the risk is low, let them try something you would not have picked. If there is a safety, ethical, or significant clinical risk, step in sooner. The target is someone who knows when to decide alone and when to go get more information.

There's often multiple ways you can solve a problem.

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

Cultural Responsiveness in Supervision and in Clinical Practice

Donovan consults across countries. Culturally responsive practice (matching your approach to someone's culture) came up as a working problem, not a theory. She has supervised people who would never question authority or admit they were struggling. They just do the work quietly. Getting honest feedback took time, trust, and deliberate openings. Asking harder or sending surveys was not enough on its own.

Professional boundaries were a second example. She worked with someone who treated client families more like extended family. Her first reaction was to correct it. Then she realized her reaction was the culturally inappropriate part. They ended up defining together what the boundary needed to look like there. When she moved abroad, she leaned on analysts who had been in the region longer. Her own read felt off at first.

She also described families where a grandparent or another relative held real authority over decisions. That can mean two views of diagnosis and treatment inside one household. Another common one: a nanny or paid caregiver does most of the implementation. They get directions from both the family and the clinical team. Consent still sits with the parents. So you have to be clear about who you are training, who decides, and how that gets communicated.

Smaller things matter too. Some supervisees want an exam pass announced and others want it kept quiet. In one school she had to watch where she sat in a meeting. Translated meetings make explaining a treatment plan much harder. Often you can simply ask people what works for them.

And again, you still need professional boundaries.

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

Defining and Measuring Professionalism So You Can Actually Rate It

Donovan pointed to two resources she uses. One is a book on twenty five essential skills for behavior analysts. She has read it with supervisees a chapter at a time. She noted that a second edition came out in 2020. The other is an article on the softer side of supervision, which covers how to teach and evaluate professionalism. She named Sellers as one author publishing in this space. Certificants can reach these journals through the BACB (the board that certifies behavior analysts) website.

The article's argument is the useful part. Treat professionalism like any other behavior analytic skill. Operationally define it (write it as observable behavior), model it, give practice, then evaluate it. It recommends a behavioral skills training approach (teach, model, practice, then give feedback). It lists skills with a description, a rationale, and a definition. Donovan said many supervisors report that teaching professionalism is not really part of their role. They would not know how to teach it.

She adapted the idea into her own form. Each professional behavior gets a definition and a rating scale (a numbered scale, low to high). Supervision standards expect you to evaluate these skills. Her version has columns for activities like parent training, staff training, and supervision meetings. You can adjust it by role. There is also a short checklist version.

You do not need this for every skill and every person. It earns its keep with someone who is struggling, or when you keep writing vague things on evaluations. She suggested writing down what you already do well. Or watch a colleague who trains beautifully, and record what they actually do.

Again, if you know me, you know I love a tool.

From the talk — Lauren Donovan

Protecting Capacity and Being Willing to Say No

An attendee raised the obvious problem. Supervision gets dropped on top of a full caseload (the clients you are responsible for) with no extra time. Donovan agreed her ideas assume a perfect schedule nobody has. Her answer starts with being honest about capacity. Do not take on ten supervisees. If you work for an organization, say so out loud. Speak up when you are drowning, or when you know you are not being effective.

Then build systems so supervision does not run on improvisation. She said her own supervision now mostly carries itself because she set it up once. Pull indirect and unrestricted hours (supervision hours away from client sessions) out of work you are already doing. Do not invent extra tasks. Her ideal is supervising people on shared cases so the roles overlap. Even an unprepared week can cover one technical skill or one professional skill through scenarios.

She has also learned to decline. Saying no felt bad, because she believes supervision shapes the field. But she would rather send someone to find a better supervisor than give them supervision she is not proud of.

The same line applies to workarounds. A question came up about supervising an RBT (a certified frontline therapy role) in a school that limits observation. Data alone will not do it, since at least one observation a month is required. Video with the right consent may work, within school policy. Sometimes the honest answer is no, and if the hours get audited you are both exposed.

are we giving people good supervision or are we checking them off?

From the talk — Lauren Donovan