Models of supervision groups you could choose from:

• One time or limited duration

  • A one time event or a 3 week session of weekly group meetings to engage in supervision. 

• On-going

  • closed groups - a group of individuals who have committed to one another and the work of supervision for a period of time. There is one point of entry and everyone travels that journey together.

  • open groups - a small group of committed colleagues with a leader who meet regularly but are open to others joining as they need.

  • Drop-ins - a supervision leader making themselves available for anyone to drop in and seek supervision from a group of other people who dropped in.

• On Site - in a shared space like a library conference room, a school classroom not in use, a church room, or other community space where colleagues gather to engage in supervision

• Distance/Virtual - utilizing zoom or other virtual connection platform to engage in supervision across multiple time zones (or not). IIRAS has been using zoom to connect colleagues from around the world since its inception in 2016, but it has become even more popular to connect this way due to the COVID pandemic and lock downs in various countries. So, this is no longer just an option for people who are in different geographic locations.

• Membership - mixed vs. homogenous - Groups can be of all educational interpreters, or interpreters who work in mental health settings or interpreters who have less than 5 years of experience or more than 25 years of experience. OR groups can be any interpreter who signs up regardless of any speciality or length of years of experience. It is up to the coordinators to determine the purpose and function of the group in terms of membership make up. 

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Logistics

• Recruitment of Members

  • Recruiting members for your community-based supervision group can be as simple as emailing a few of your colleagues or even emailing your state chapter of RID to see what kind of interest there is in engaging in regular supervision.

  • Identifying a supervision leader can mean identifying another community member who already has training or reaching out to IIRAS to become a trained supervision leader yourself. While you are training under the direction of an experienced or credentialed upservision leader, you can still be engaging in and learning to lead your group of colleagues. IIRAS would provide the training and leader to train you. 

    • If you are interested in this option, email us to get the information about “Becoming a Supervision Leader” . It is $450 dollars for the 9-month training.

  • Buy-in - In terms of garnering buy-in from your community, this is the reasons we recommend starting small. The best way to get buy-in is to have your word-of-mouth be powerful and positive. This happens by engaging a small group of people who are eager and interested in pursuing this and then letting their experiences tell the story. The more benefits they experience, the more their work improves, the more the way they talk about the work changes, and the more satisfied consumers are - the more people will notice and ask why. 

• In terms of making your community-based supervision session viable financially, there are a few options. 

  • If you are using an IIRAS supervision leader, each member of your group will need to pay the $360 registration fee for the 9-month Group Supervision program. This money is used to pay the supervision leader(s) as well as cover expenses for CEU processing, administration, etc. are accounted for. 

  • If you are running a group yourself, as a trained supervision leader, you will want to charge something for your time and expertise. There are a few reasons for this:

    • When participants pay for something they commit on a different level than if it were free.

    • Your time and expertise are valuable, you have sought out additional training and practice to enhance your own skills as well as contribute to the advancement of the profession in  your local area. 

    • You will need funds potentially to cover room expenses, CEU processing, and/or handouts or other supplies. 

• CEU Processing

  • If you are running your group through IIRAS, we will take care of CEU processing for the 9-month program.

  • If you are running your group yourself, you will want to seek out a CMP sponsor who is open to processing CEUs for supervision, it doesn’t fit the parameters of the CMP process perfectly, so there needs to be an openness and recognition of the professional benefit of supervision by the CMP sponsor.

    • IIRAS can provide examples of CEU instructor forms and activity forms to use for processing.

• Setting up sessions

  • If you are running your group through IIRAS, you will be meeting on the 3rd Saturday or Monday of the month, unless your group has made a special arrangement with your supervision leader. 

  • If you are running your group yourself, we recommend you choose a day/time that works best in your schedule and see who can attend. The alternative is to choose the members and then select a time that works for all. Either way, we recommend you select a day/time each month that is consistent and predictable (2nd THursday at 5pm), to make it easier for scheduling. 

• Evaluating the experience

  • Whether you are seeking CEUs for your community-based Supervision sessions or not, evaluations will help you in determining not only effectiveness, but likelihood that they will return and/or refer a friend. 

  • You can collect information regarding common themes, challenges, and or barriers as well. 

  • Again, IIRAS can help by providing sample evaluation templates in the Supervision Leader toolkit for both session specific evaluations as well as program-level assessments (after the completion of all sessions).