"Because Here, White is Right": Mental Health Experiences of International Graduate Students of Color from a Critical Race Perspective.

To examine the mental health experiences of international graduate students of Color (IGSC) as they navigate through a multitude of systemic barriers, the researchers interviewed eight IGSC in the U.S. Adopting a critical race perspective, the researchers sought to address a persistent gap in the counseling literature, and explore how systemic influences of racism, xenophobia, and discriminatory policies impacted the mental health of IGSC. Three distinct themes emerged from phenomenological analysis of the participants' interviews in the current study: cross-cultural challenges, surviving racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, and mental health and wellness. Implications for how professional counselors can support IGSC as they navigate through multiple challenges are emphasized.

Best Practices in Clinical Supervision: another step in delineating effective supervision practice.

Across the helping professions, we have arrived at a point where it is possible to create statements of best practices in supervision that are based on available empirical research; credentialing, ethical, and legal guidelines; and consensus opinion. Best practices are different from, but certainly complementary to, statements of supervision competencies. In this paper, I highlight the differences between competencies and best practices, and then describe the development and content of one comprehensive statement, the Best Practices in Clinical Supervision created for the field of counseling and counselor education. I then illustrate the applicability of the Best Practices across disciplines and countries through a comparison and contrast with several other existing documents. I conclude with a brief look at the development of supervisor expertise, which requires not only declarative knowledge (competencies) and procedural knowledge (statements of best practices), but also reflective knowledge. The latter is composed of insights built over years of supervision education, experience, and self-reflection regarding necessary adaptions and improvisations that inform an individualized approach to supervision practice.

Genetic counseling supervisor competencies: results of a Delphi study.

Clinical supervision is a critical component of genetic counseling student preparation, yet empirically-determined competencies for genetic counseling supervisors are lacking. In this study a modified, two-round Delphi method was used to gain consensus about important genetic counseling supervisor knowledge, characteristics, and skills. Program directors and assistant directors of American Board of Genetic Counseling accredited genetic counseling programs in North America (N = 33) were invited to participate and to recruit three experienced supervisors. Seventy-four individuals completed Round 1 and, of these, 61 completed Round 2. Approximately two-thirds were clinical supervisors from prenatal, pediatrics, cancer, and adult clinics; one-third were program directors. Participants rated the importance for genetic counseling supervisors of 158 items derived from supervision literature in allied health professions. They rated 142 items (89.9 %) as highly important. Content analysis of these items yielded six supervisor competency domains: Personal traits and characteristics; relationship building and maintenance; student evaluation; student centered supervision; guidance and monitoring of patient care; and ethical and legal aspects of supervision. The results provide a basis for training genetic counseling supervisors and for further research to refine and validate supervisor competencies.

Supervision of psychosocial skills in genetic counseling.

Little has been written about how genetic counseling supervisors can help students develop psychosocial skills in their clinical rotations. The authors describe several approaches supervisors can use, ranging from preventive measures (e.g., normalizing anxiety), to skill-enhancing interventions (e.g., modeling and thinking aloud), to more direct approaches (e.g., immediacy, confrontation) that may be necessary for students who are reluctant, or even resistant, to using psychosocial skills with their clients.