ABAI Post-Convention Supervisory Workshop: Frequently Asked Questions

1. What distinguishes the post-convention workshop format from a typical webinar-based CEU?

The full-day workshop format provides extended time for activities that cannot be completed meaningfully in an hour-long webinar: a thorough self-assessment with reflection, values clarification exercises that require sustained engagement, agenda planning that produces a real product the participant will use, and peer discussion that deepens understanding through social learning. The post-convention setting also creates a professional community among participants who share a similar developmental moment in their supervisory careers, which extends the learning beyond the day itself.

2. What is the New Supervisor Workbook and how does it connect to this workshop?

The Sellers and LeBlanc (2022) New Supervisor Workbook is a practitioner-focused resource that provides structured activities, reflection prompts, self-assessment tools, and guidance for the first year of supervisory practice. The workshop uses the workbook as its primary reference, though supplementary materials are provided for participants who do not have it. The workbook extends the workshop content into a sustained developmental framework that participants can work through across the full first year of their supervisory practice, rather than as a single learning event.

3. What is a reflection activity and how does it differ from self-assessment?

Self-assessment involves comparing one's current skill level to defined competency criteria — it produces a rating or gap analysis. Reflection is a broader practice of examining one's own behavior, reasoning, and values with the goal of understanding them more clearly. In the workshop context, the reflection activity asks supervisors to identify the values that guide their supervision and clinical work — what they believe supervision is for, what kind of practitioner they want to develop, and what principles they are unwilling to compromise.

This reflection informs how supervisors make decisions across the full range of supervisory situations, many of which cannot be anticipated by specific skill training.

4. How do I develop an agenda for a supervision meeting?

An effective supervision agenda begins with a brief review of what was planned for the previous period and what was accomplished. It then identifies the primary competency focus for the current session — which skill or knowledge area will receive the most attention — and the specific activities planned for that focus (direct observation, case discussion, role-play, didactic instruction, data review). It includes time for the trainee to raise issues or concerns they have encountered since the last meeting, and ends with planning for between-session activities and the focus for the next meeting.

The agenda should be shared with the trainee in advance to allow preparation.

5. What is the BACB's supervisor training requirement and does this workshop fulfill it?

The BACB requires that BCBAs complete 8 hours of supervisor training before providing supervision for fieldwork experience, and that they complete ongoing training at defined intervals thereafter. The specific content requirements include supervision practices, ethics in supervision, and professional and ethical compliance. This workshop, depending on its approved BACB CEU designation, may fulfill a portion of those training hours.

Participants should verify the CEU designation and content areas for their records and ensure that their supervisor training hours meet current BACB requirements.

6. What is the role of self-assessment in supervision competence development?

Self-assessment serves two functions in supervisory development. First, it provides a baseline that identifies where developmental energy should be focused — rather than investing equally in all supervisory skills, a targeted approach based on self-assessment is more efficient. Second, it calibrates the supervisor's self-perceptions toward accuracy — new supervisors often have inaccurate beliefs about their own preparedness, either overestimating or underestimating their readiness.

Structured self-assessment against explicit competency criteria corrects these inaccuracies, which is ethically important because scope of competence decisions are based on self-knowledge.

7. Why are values important to supervisory practice?

Values function as rule-governed behavior — they specify how one will respond across a wide range of situations based on general principles rather than case-by-case deliberation. In supervision, values guide decisions about what to prioritize in trainee development, how to balance structure with autonomy, how to respond to mistakes, what constitutes acceptable versus unacceptable performance, and what kind of professional the supervisor is trying to help the trainee become. When values are implicit and unexamined, they still operate — but the supervisor may not recognize that their behavior is value-driven, which makes it difficult to identify when their values are producing unintended outcomes.

8. How should I use the consulting supervisor text if I do not have a formal consulting supervisor?

The consulting supervisor text can be used as a self-study framework for BCBAs who do not have access to a formal consulting supervisor. It provides the framework for what a consulting supervisor relationship would involve — the assessment tools, the developmental activities, the feedback mechanisms — which the BCBA can adapt for their own self-directed professional development. Alternatively, a peer supervisory relationship with another new BCBA can provide a functional analog to a consulting supervisor, with each partner observing the other's supervision sessions and providing structured feedback based on the framework.

9. What are the core components of a supervision meeting agenda?

Core components include: a review of previous session commitments and trainee updates since last meeting; direct observation or review of case data with specific feedback; a targeted competency-building activity (role-play, case conceptualization, didactic instruction) linked to the trainee's current developmental priorities; time for trainee-initiated questions or concerns; and planning for the next period including between-session activities and next session focus. The agenda should be tailored to the trainee's current stage in their fieldwork experience and adjusted based on what recent data show about their skill development trajectory.

10. How does attending a live workshop like this one improve outcomes compared to a recorded course?

Live workshops provide interactive elements that recorded courses cannot replicate: immediate feedback on self-assessment activities, discussion with peers who share similar professional contexts, facilitated values clarification that can be deepened through dialogue, and real-time agenda planning with the ability to ask questions and receive guidance as problems arise. The community-of-practice dimension is particularly valuable — connections made at workshops like this one can provide ongoing peer consultation and support that extends the developmental impact far beyond the day of the workshop.