Professional Supervision: More Than Just Oversight — It’s Growth with Shannon Heers – The Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast

What role can professional supervision play in helping allied health professionals not only avoid burnout but thrive in their careers? That’s the topic of conversation in episode when Jo is joined by Shannon Heers. Shannon Heers is a therapist, Approved Clinical Supervisor, and the founder of Firelight Supervision. 

In this conversation, Jo and Shannon discuss:

• How many private practice owners can feel alone and isolated and how that can contribute to burnout
• Shannon’s experience with burnout
• The direct correlation Shannon has seen between her clinical capabilities and her ability to thrive as an allied health professional, with the amount and type of supervision she had at the time 
• The struggles many allied health professionals experience asking for help
• Why some mental health professionals struggle with the idea (and need) of supervision once licenced
• How becoming a clinical supervisor has been good for Shannon’s development and wellbeing
• Shannon’s advice on how to enjoy longevity in the profession
• The type, and amount, of support Shannon has in her life helps her avoid burnout and thrive as a clinician

About Shannon: Shannon Heers is a therapist, Approved Clinical Supervisor, and the founder of Firelight Supervision. Firelight Supervision provides clinical supervision to counsellors and social workers pursuing licensure, as well as clinical consultation for post-licensure professional growth and development. Shannon is also the owner of Catalyss Counseling, a private-pay group private practice located in Colorado. Shannon is passionate about decreasing therapist isolation, preventing burnout, and providing private practice therapists with the clinical support they deserve.

You can connect with Shannon via her website at Firelight Supervision.

Special thanks to our podcast sponsor, Practice Conquest!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Future Proofing Health Professional Facebook group 

 If you know you need more support, please visit my website at https://jomuirhead.com

Finally, if you loved this episode, please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Jo:

Here we are with another episode of the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast. Oh my goodness. How many times do I wish I had not chosen the word entrepreneurial? Many, many times. I’m struggling to say it today. I often struggle to type it. This is going to be another one of those episodes where you get your mind blown, you get a new piece of information that could potentially change your relationship with your work. I am really excited to have Shannon here with me today. Now, Shannon and I met three minutes ago. But apparently Shannon is a podcast listener. She has seen me present before and she was brave enough to reach out and say, Jo, I’ve got something to contribute to your podcast. Can I please come and talk to your listeners about this thing? Which we will get to in a minute. But as  before we get straight into the episode, I wanna take a moment to acknowledge the land on which I come to you from today, which is the land of the Darug people, the traditional custodians of the land in the lower Blue Mountains. I pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. And thank you very much for looking after this land in such a way that allows people like me to be able to come and live here today. So, Shannon, welcome to the podcast.

Shannon:

Thanks so much for having me, Jo. It’s a pleasure.

Jo:

<Laugh>, it’s so lovely to meet you Now. Can you tell and share with our listeners today who you are, where you hail from, what you do, and what made you reach out to me?

Shannon:

Yes. My name is Shannon Hears. I am a licensed professional counsellor and approved clinical supervisor. I am physically located in the United States, specifically in the Denver area of Colorado. So kind of nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, which I can actually see right now as I look out my window. It’s giving me some good inspiration for tonight

So what I do is we Firelight Supervision is a virtual clinical supervision and clinical consultation practice. We provide licensure clinical supervision in a few States in America, but primarily we provide a clinical consultation for therapists who are licensed and able to practice independently, literally anywhere. Most of our clientele comes from the United States, but we have worked with people in other countries who are looking for clinical consultation for the the tough work that you do kind of day in and day out. Primarily those in private practice and primarily those who are in solo practices working on their own. So we provide clinical support for your clinical work with clients.

Jo:

That’s the best tagline and I have a whole lot of positive things to say about supervision and clinical consultation. So I’m really thrilled that we’re actually having this con this conversation today. But given that we didn’t know each other well, what made you brave enough to reach out and say, Jo, I have something to talk to your people about. How did you do that? ’cause that’s not easy.

Shannon:

Yes. Throughout the years, I’ve been privileged to know a lot of private practice therapists, and one of the main things that we hear from private practice therapists who are in their own practice, is that they one, they feel very alone and isolated. And two, whether that’s the cause or a result that they tend to get burnt out or feel a lot of those symptoms of burnout. And I know that’s near and dear to your heart. And the reason I reached out is because I think a lot of private practice therapists are looking at alternative options other than providing that direct client care. How can I get alternative streams of income? What can I do that is not direct clinical care that’s gonna burn me out?  kind of getting into that entrepreneurial mindset. And so I think a lot of therapists are really looking in that direction right now, which is great. It’s not a bad thing at all, for sure. And so I think you have a lot of people that are interested in what you have to say and the guests that you’re bringing on your podcast.

Jo:

Nice. I thank you for sharing that. So, for any other listener who thinks that they don’t have anything to say or don’t have any conversations to add to this Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast, take a leaf outta Shannon’s book, email me hello@jomuirhead.com if you’d like, if you’ve got something to contribute. Well, I wanna hear from you. So before we get into how you solve a problem, can you share with us an experience or a time that you may have actually experienced burnout yourself or something akin to burnout, and what was that like for you?

Shannon:

Well, I’ve been in the mental health and the counselling field for like 27 years now which I know is aging me a little bit. And so it would be very rare for someone to be in the field for that long and not experience burnout. And I did, I had a very significant time in my life where I just quit. I quit my job. I considered leaving the field. I was out of the field for at least a year. And really, it took me about that long to heal. Might have even taken a little bit longer to kind of heal from the burnout some of the things. And I did eventually come back into the field. I have been doing private practice counselling now for over 10 years.

I’ve also worked in agency work, in community mental health. I’ve worked in crisis centres. I’ve worked in outpatient, many, many different settings as you do kind of throughout your career. And one of the things when I was experiencing my burnout symptoms, this is all of course, in hindsight, at the moment no one told me this was what was going on. I didn’t have the kind of support saying, Hey, maybe you should take a step back. Maybe you should take care of yourself. Maybe this is what’s going on. I didn’t have that in my life at that point. But what I did realise is that there has been a significant difference in my ability to be a professional counsellor, a professional in the field and a counsellor to other people based on the type of supervision I was getting.

[When] I had good supervision. I was a good therapist, good counsellor. I had bad or no supervision, and I don’t know how good of a counsellor I was at that point, but that’s when I got burnt out. And so for me, it was such a direct correlation between the type of consultation and supervision and support I was getting to the way I was able to function in my job. And burnout doesn’t just affect you as a clinician. It affects you as a person also. And I don’t know if that’s what you asked, but that’s the why behind why I am very passionate about providing good clinical supervision and consultation.

Jo:

Yeah. I don’t even remember the question I asked now, but that answer and that, oh, that piece of information. See what I see what I mean. People, you come to this podcast and your mind gets blown. There is a direct correlation. We have a human being in front of us with lived experience who is professing that there is a direct correlation between our clinical capabilities and our ability to look after ourselves and the supervision or clinical consultation that we’re a part of. So I’ve been in the industry probably as long as you have. What has made it difficult for those of us who are a little older, what has made it difficult for us to reach out and say, I need help?

Shannon:

Hmm. Yes, that’s a great question. And what I have been realising is that it’s kind of a norm. It’s a norm in our field, that once you become fully licensed, like you’re on your own, you don’t need support, you know? 

And it’s a norm in agencies. Once you’re  fully licensed, you get set free, and maybe even you get promoted and given more job responsibilities. Or if you’re in private practice, you’re kind of on your own and there’s no kind of safety net or anyone, anyone else to kind of consult with. And so that’s the norm. And so it’s hard to break outta that norm. It’s hard to have kind of a different mindset around that. A lot of therapists have the constantly learning mindset, which is great. I wanna learn more. I wanna learn this new technique, this new trend, this new modality. That’s fantastic. But applying it to themselves is a lot harder. Applying it to ourselves is a lot harder.

Jo:

Yeah. Wow. We all have continuing education that we need to do. You guys call it continuing education units. We call it continuing professional development, whatever it means. But we have this expectation of going and doing, I got how many hours do you need to do a year?

Shannon:

Yeah. Well, it depends on the State. We have 40 hours every two years, so 20 hours a year.

Jo:

So let’s just think about. That’s like half a work week to be spent continuing to meet our licensure requirements or our ability to practice requirements. I mean, if the general public knew how little we needed to do to stay on our game, they might be a little horrified, don’t you think?

Shannon:

Yeah, for sure. And so many people look at that continuing education as a formal training, oh, I have to get 20 hours of formal training a year. But there’s a lot of other ways, at least, depending on the State to meet that and consultation, which is really the application of the knowledge that you’ve learned, in addition to kind of the support you’re getting as a therapist, as a person, doing your work. I mean, that can just be so impactful.

Jo:

Yeah, absolutely. And for the rehabilitation counsellors in Australia listening, can actually claim 12 hours every 12 months with a supervisor such as me. And it’s actually something that our association recommends. It’s in the dropdown field. But 12 hours, that’s like once a month. Not sure that’s enough. But for some people it will be.  So help me understand why mental health professionals really struggle with the word supervision once they’re licensed.

Shannon:

Oh my gosh, yes. What I have learned, and again, I don’t know if this is everyone’s experiences, what I have learned is that, supervision over those first few years before your license can be expensive. It can be time consuming, it can be a good experience, but some people don’t have a great experience with that. And once you’re kind of independently licensed, while it can be a li very scary, to kind of have all that liability and responsibility now on your own, you can also feel very freeing. Oh, now I can make decisions. I don’t have to do what I don’t wanna do.  I don’t have to spend this money or time, doing something that I perceive has, little value or not as much value as me spending my time, doing something else. So I think that that could be part of the mindset that I’ve heard from people. No, I think I’m good now. I just wanna like, settle in and figure out what I’m gonna do on my own. You’re not under the yoke of someone else telling you what to do. So that’s one of the things I’ve learned. Again, I also think it’s a norm. Like that is not normalised, with us as therapists, clinical social workers to continue to seek out that kind of support. Maybe it’s the idea that, oh, I shouldn’t need that support anymore. I shouldn’t need that. I should be okay on my own, so I’m gonna go at on my own. I’m guessing that’s what it is for a lot of people.

Jo:

Yeah. And I know, certainly for me, in the beginnings of my career, having to admit that I needed help was horrifying. It was almost like admitting that you were incompetent. And I talk about it in this season quite a lot. Some of the messaging that I got and some of the reasons that bosses and supervisors made it difficult for me to reach out and ask for help. So when you don’t know what you don’t know, you just keep repeating the same patterns of behaviour until something else changes. And unfortunately, regardless of whether you’re a physical therapist, physiotherapist, chiropractor, you think you’re doing a physical modality. Anything where we are dealing with people in some sort of pain, physical pain, emotional pain is gonna have a toll on us. And I don’t know how we maintain our ethics, our professionalism, our commitment to our clients care, and our commitment to ourselves if we don’t have somebody alongside us, giving us perspective along the way. So you raised an interesting point in supervision for licensure or the ability to practice. It almost feels like that’s quite directive. Do this, say this, use this tool, do it this way. Report back to me. Is that correct? Is that what it’s like getting up to licensure?

Shannon:

I don’t think it has to be like that, but I think that’s what it’s like for a lot of people, right? For a lot of supervisees. I mean, certainly that’s not the way I supervise. But that is a lot of people’s experience that it is more directive versus collaborative. I mean, some of that makes sense. If you’re new and you don’t need the skills and you need some of that direction and guidance, some of that can make sense. But if you get someone who continues to be directive, even after you’ve learned some of that, and you may need a different type of support, but you still have to have the supervision that can be off-putting for sure. And, you raise a great point. Consultation, which is what we call literally clinical supervision after you become fully licensed. It really is consultation. It’s much more collaborative.  You don’t have to do what your supervisor or your consultant tells you to do.  You can take it into account, as you said, you get different perspectives on cases on your work as a professional, as a counsellor in the field, but you don’t have to, it’s a lot more of a mutual process than a lot of people experience during their supervision years.

Jo:

Yeah. And I think this is why quality supervision and case consultation, ’cause not everyone’s cut out for it, right? I had this conversation yesterday that not everybody is cut out for this. Like, to take yourself out of that clinical hat and put yourself onto a more onto a different, like they’re different skills. I want you to explain a little bit how it’s different. Does it feel different? Does it sound different? Is it different in your body when you are actually providing case consultation than when you are providing clinical therapeutic intervention? Can you kind of contrast that for us a bit?

Shannon:

Yeah, I mean, literally it’s like putting on a different hat, you know? Clinical supervision is a completely different field than a being a clinical therapist or counsellor. It is not true that if you are a fantastic therapist, you’re gonna be a fantastic supervisor. It could be true, but it’s not that direct correlation there. I have had many hours of training and supervision. I have gotten supervision of my supervision.  I have learned from many supervisors. I have a lot of experience kind of both on the learning and the providing side of it. And I’m still learning, just as a clinician, we continue to learn and absorb things, but it’s a different field.  There are different ways that you work with your supervisees or your consultees as a supervisor than you would with your clients. You probably aren’t gonna be doing CBT with your supervisees, but you may point out, Hey, I think there’s something going on in the way that you’re reacting to this, that you might want to explore further in your own work, in your own therapy. But you’re noticing patterns and things that come up that are important that may be impacting their clinical work.

Jo:

Great. That’s a great example. So now I’m gonna put you under the microscope a little bit more. Does it feel different to you? So when I sit in front of a client where I have to be clinically present, it feels very different when I’m supervising and or mentoring. Does it feel different for you, Shannon? And if so, how?

Shannon:

So I’m gonna answer that by saying there are some things that are similar. The things that are similar is, it’s most important to develop the relationship first. So just as with your client, you’re gonna work on developing that therapeutic connection, with your supervisee or consultee as a supervisor. That to me is the first thing that we need to do is develop that relationship and that connection. It becomes a little bit different ’cause you’re not gonna go as deep with the relationship as you would like. I don’t need to know about all my supervisees or my consultees past traumas.  I don’t need to know the details or any of that stuff. I do need to know what may be going on that’s they’re bringing into the supervision session. They’re bringing into the supervisory relationship because they’re bringing it in, then I know that’s gonna impact their work with clients, right?

So I do need to know that. So I think what I do with my supervisees, how it feels different to me than working with my clients, I’m very much in kind of the here and now moment. Using myself as kind of a gauge and a reactor with my supervisees when I’m providing supervision. I’m looking down much more like a big picture. If we’re looking at this case and we’re doing case consultation, it’s much more of a what are the patterns? What seems to be missing?  what are we not connecting? Or what could be a possibility out there.

Jo:

You’ve explained it beautifully. You’ve done that really well. And again, I think this applies for anybody like occupational therapists and exercise physiologists. Like they’re in the messy middle bit with their client when they’re in session. And while all of us are risk managers, like, we’re sitting there going, what is this client telling me? And how does it affect things I heard before, things that might happen in the past, things that when they leave the room? I think for me as as a supervisor or somebody providing mentorship the pressure for me is a lot less ’cause this person is seeking me to help them with perspective. I have people who turn up and go I can’t work with this client population anymore. And I don’t know why. Well, I, as a supervisor, I’ve got some insights into that, but like you’ve said, it might require some therapy. So it’s really important for people like you and I to know where one ends. Do you have any insight? ’cause I know that there’ll be a lot of mental health professionals going, I just wanna supervise, but I have been caught, especially with mental health professionals, where they come to supervision and they treat it like therapy. So can you give us maybe a clear understanding of when your supervisee or the person who’s consulting with you is tipping over into needing something else? 

Shannon: 

It’s really like figuring out where that line is and it’s different with every person that you work with, of course. And for me, I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s a little bit more of a gut feeling. Think about clinically when you work with someone, or a population you know really well, and you just get a gut feeling that something maybe they’re missing or there’s a connection there, or, or there’s a symptom they’re not telling you about, or possibly a potential diagnosis they’re not telling you about or they’re not aware of. You kind of know that, you kind of know that inside of you. I make it very clear kind of upfront with my supervisees and consultees. I’m like, I don’t do therapy with you. That’s very clearly talked about and discussed, but things will come up in our work together and there are times that I may recommend that you kind of do your own work on this stuff. So it’s really kinda setting the expectations even upfront, that this is what my role is versus the role of a therapist. I really try to focus very heavily on the clinical aspect of their work too, because that’s what they’re not getting from anyone else. They’re not gonna get that from their therapist. That’s my role is to help them develop as a clinician and get those good clinical outcomes that people want to get from their clinical work.

Jo:

That’s great. And that offers protections for all of us ’cause as the people doing this work and delivering this work, I don’t think we realise the amount of external resource and support that we genuinely need. And I’m working on that at the moment, but I think we all need consultation and supervision, especially in the day and age now when nobody comes to us with a single problem. Like all the complexities of where people live and what they’re trying to contend with each day.  they come in and they’ll wanna talk to you about the war in the Middle East, they’ll wanna talk to you about the election. We can’t ignore that stuff anymore. And when I graduated, it was like, we don’t talk about politics and we don’t talk about religion, but in my work, politics and religion are very important to the people I work with, right? So I think, for us trying to work this out along the way, we’re prone to making mistakes. We’re prone to putting more pressure on ourselves. We’re prone to not knowing what we don’t know that is there a better way? Is there a different way? Do I have to keep working with this person? Gosh forbid. Like it what some of the most pleasant supervision or or consultation sessions I’ve ever had is like, you are really not a good fit for this client. Let’s talk about whether you actually wanna keep doing this work and watching their face light up when they go. You mean I don’t have to? It’s like, no, it’s not good for you or the client. How about we change it up?

Shannon:

Yes. It comes up so much. And then the guilt that they feel, and you’re like, no, it’s a good thing for you and for them. The amount of support that I need to do my job <laugh> on a regular basis, people would laugh at. So get my business consultation, not just from one person, from currently two people, but I’ve had two. I’ve had many people I’ve done business consultation with, and then the clinical consultation that I continue to get even this far along in my career because I don’t know all the answers. And I wanna continue to learn. And then of course, my own work, that I’m doing on my personal self-reflection. I mean, there is so many people that go into helping me <laugh> do my job and get through every day successfully as a clinician and a person.  I just can’t imagine people trying to have a long term career in this field without any of that support.

Jo:

Beautiful. Wow. So that’s my ending to the podcast. That was just that. No, I’m kidding. We we’re gonna keep going. And I think that’s such an important thing to remember because 40 hours of CEUs, or in my case, 30 hours a year of continuing professional development just isn’t gonna cut it. This is if we are genuinely committed to the work that we do with clients, right? Then we have to be genuinely committed to being the best possible versions of the person who can deliver that work. Not perfect, but we’ve gotta make sure that we are healthy enough, engaged enough, not doing things that we shouldn’t be doing or not. In my case, I was working so hard and over-functioning so much because I didn’t know how to do it any other way. And I didn’t have somebody consistently, consistently enough. ’cause There’s a whole piece in that as well, consistently enough in my world watching me going, you really good at this work, Jo? But it is taking a toll on you. Can we please talk about that? Now, whether I would’ve been receptive, who knows? But Jesus, I wish somebody had had the courage to have that conversation with me and not turn it into, your reports are late, your notes aren’t up to date, you’re not working hard enough. And just adding to the cycle of me being hypervigilant and feeling like I have to work harder. That’s a perfect example of how supervision and case consultation can protect us.

Shannon:

Yeah. And I really like how you said that consistent support, and I’m gonna mirror something that I know you’ve said before, which is the trust that you need to have to get anything done. And I see a lot of people, a lot of clinicians not having a clinical supervisor or consultant that they’re meeting with regularly or peers. They’re asking complete strangers who they don’t even know for clinical consultation. Can you guess where this happens a lot? <Laugh>, right? Social media, Facebook people and they are asking people they have never even heard of before, consultation on their cases or what to do and how many times you just don’t know where these people are. You don’t know kind of what they’re doing. And so, <laugh> going back to that piece, that it is important to have not just the consistency, but you have to have the trust in someone. You have to have developed that relationship before any kind of learning is going to kind of occur. So in the supervisory relationship, you really have to have the kind of trust that you would have with a supervisor before you’re gonna believe them. When someone says, oh, maybe you’re getting a little crispy around the edges, maybe you should look at something from a different perspective. Or how about trying this in order to believe that you have to have the relationship and the trust there. And that comes from kind of meeting with someone consistently, rather than asking a random person.

Jo:

Or, or asking 25,000 random people in a Facebook group. I am gonna labour this point a little bit because it is so disappointing that we continue to think that de-identified sort of ambiguous questions in a Facebook group are going to give us the answers that we so desperately need. And I see some of those questions, and you can see from the comments underneath, there’s hundreds of comments underneath. And quite often, they’re questions like, I need more data and need more information. Or then we put ourselves at risk of people maligning our reputation going, why did you even take this client? How dare you say you can work with them? Who do you think you are, and so then we crawl back into our safe space and go, well, I obviously can’t talk about this because people that I don’t know who don’t know anything about me, but I trusted them and put it in a Facebook group, have taken it all out of context, but somehow I’m now incompetent. And that goes on daily, right? You see it. I see it.

Shannon:

Oh my goodness. It just does every single time. I wanna say like, this is something you need to do an in-depth consult with someone  and trust. That is crowdsourcing. This might give you ideas, but it’s not, as you said, that’s not really what you’re wanting. You want someone to really kind of support you in this. And yes, you’re not always gonna get it that way. So if y you are someone listening to this podcast and you’re like, oh, I have a question, I’m gonna ask kind of a local Facebook group that could be a sign that maybe, getting clinical consultation would be a good move for you.

Jo:

Yeah. That’s great. Thank you for doing that. So one of the other, we’re gonna kind of segue into something different now, right? So I am somebody who thinks that a lot of clinicians are well suited for multiple streams of income. It’s certainly has helped me manage me. Not having to see clients day in and day out. It’s not for everybody. Not everyone needs to have multiple streams of Income, but it’s been a great protection from me. So share with me how becoming a clinical supervisor can add this new element to our work. Why has it been good for you, Shannon?

Shannon:

Yes. So going back to our burnout prevention or our burnout conversation, one of the things that I’ve realised kind of a long time ago is that variety in my work is really important for me to stay not burnt out. And so doing supervision is different. And when you start out, it’s harder. Now for me, it’s a lot easier doing supervision than it is the clinical work. It’s not always the case. So that is primarily the reason I did it. I loved it. I love ongoing learning. I love supporting other people in their learning. I was never someone who did well by learning didactically or people telling me what to do. I always learned better by having people ask me questions and letting me think about the response. And so that’s the style I like to use with the people I supervise. I did not go into it knowing that I would make money out of doing supervision because that is not the case.

Jo:

Okay, that’s honest.

Shannon:

Usually I do say usually because now Firelight Supervision, we have built it and scaled it to a model where, yes, that is something, I wouldn’t say we make money off of it, but it’s worth it financially for the effort that we put into it. However, as a solo practice clinician providing supervision was never a money maker for me. In fact, I made less money doing that than seeing a client clinically. So really thinking about what’s your motivation to do this?  I think supervision sounds very ideal when you are starting to get burnt out. Oh, I need to see less clients I’ll supervise. But really, who wants a burnt out supervisor?

Jo:

Hallelujah. Woohoo, not me.

Shannon:

Right? No one wants a supervisor. And that will come out in your supervision. It will come out. So really looking at the reasons to go into it. And there are many other things to do that you can make money that aren’t just like the one-on-one supervision. You can do groups, you can do speaking engagements. You can be an expert kind of in different areas. There’s a lot of things that you can do in the supervision field that aren’t just the one-on-one that you can make money on. But  if you’re going into supervision, one just ’cause you’re burnt out or two just to make more money, those those may not come true for you. That may not actually happen that way.

Jo:

I think that’s really valuable. Now, I am also here to share with everybody. I have worked with clients where we have made supervision quite lucrative for them. But interestingly, that burnt out clinician to the burnt out supervisor, I’ve stopped many clinicians coming to me who say that they wanna go into supervision ’cause It’s easy and it’ll take them out of the burnt out chair. And I’m like, it’s totally the wrong motivation. Let’s work on your burnout before we put you in front of other people. Not saying that you need to stop working ’cause I actually don’t believe that that’s how you recover. Well, not all of us recover that way, but why would you go from one client? You go, I’m burnt out. I’m going to potentially be substandard for this one client.

And then you go, now I’m going to talk to this other person and potentially be substandard to this other person who’s going to take my substandard information and apply it to the 40 clients they’re seeing. Like, we like knowing that our influence has this great ripple effect. Well, it does positively and negatively as well. That was a really powerful conversation there that I took over. So I want you to think about a clinician who’s maybe five years post-graduation. I am not gonna ask you about a new grad ’cause I really want a different conversation here ’cause we all know that new grads have to go through formal supervision and it’s quite often very deliberate. And there’s learning outcomes and they have to put the right piece of paper wherever the right piece of paper needs to go. So I want you to think about someone who is five years post credentialing. What are your recommendations or one recommendation for that person who wants to see this career through to 30 year veteran in the service?

Shannon:

The recommendation is do some fantastic burnout prevention work would be my top recommendation. Create your plan. What’s your plan to prevent your burnout for the next 30 years? Starting today? What are you gonna do every day? What are you gonna do every week, maybe every month, maybe once a year, to prevent burnout. And it needs to be kind of multifaceted for sure.  I always think, of course I’m a little biased that, clinical consultation can be a huge part of that role and should be, but everyone’s different. It may or may not be part of the plan, but having a really deliberate plan, if you wanna stay doing clinical work, for the next 30 years, you can do it. It is possible to do, but you have to be deliberate and you have to be planful about how you’re gonna manage unexpected life events. How are you gonna manage those? How are you gonna manage changes in your career, changes in the clientele, changes in new modalities that come up.  How are you gonna manage kind of all of that stuff? I do think it’s a great idea. Like I said, variety for me at least has been one of the best ways for me to have a long career in this field. And I being very thoughtful about what I wanna say no to and what I wanna say yes to in terms of that variety,  I think has been really helpful.

Jo:

Yeah. Can we play a bit of a game?

Shannon:

Yeah.

Jo:

Can you list out just off the top of your head all the different types of supports that you have in place? ’cause I wanna just see how long this list is to help you do the work that you do.

Shannon:

Oh gosh. Okay.

Jo:

I’ll go next if you want me to, but I’m really curious.

Shannon:

So background here, in addition to Firelight Supervision, I’m also a group practice owner. Okay. I have kind of two businesses. So I get business consultation for each one of those businesses twice a month. That’s like weekly, some sort of business consultation in the past, I don’t do it currently, but in the past I have had consultation specific to marketing. I’ve had consultation specific to building a groups program. And what else have I had? I’ve had education specific to kind of program development and kind of organisational training and and development. So I have that educational background. So currently I’m getting business consultation for each of my programs. I get clinical consultation for the clinical work I do, I get groups consultation for the clinical group work that I do. <Laugh>, Of course I have my own therapist, right? I’m not sure whether to put this in or not ’cause sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t. But my family <laugh>.

Jo:

No, I was hoping you would put it in so well done. <Laugh>.

Shannon:

Yes. Some days, it’s unsure. So right now I think that’s what I do. I think that’s a lot. I think most people don’t try to do that much and probably can be successful with less. But that’s what I have figured out is the magic formula for me to manage my life. I also have a lot of admin support and marketing support in both the businesses so that they take some of the daily kind of to-dos and stuff out of my brain. <Laugh>.

Jo:

Yeah, please, please don’t diminish that. I think you are being very wise in getting such a multifaceted level of support and that’s what I was hoping you would say. So similarly, if I’m gonna have my turn, I’ve had clinical supervision because my work was impacting me in ways I wasn’t aware of. I’ve had mentorship. I’ve had business development, I’ve participated in training, but I like training that’s not just, I think you called it didactic. I need experiential training. If I don’t experience it, I ain’t gonna learn it. Right? But then, I’ve had a lot of admin support. I continue to pay for a lot of admin support. I’m gonna put my accountant in there. I’m gonna put my legal team in there. I’m gonna put the physiotherapist who helps me from hunching my shoulders, <laugh> in there as well.  That’s the sort of stuff that I need to help this organism deliver the quality services that people coming to me for. And I think way back in the day when I first graduated, the arrogance and the lack of wisdom around thinking that I was done and I didn’t need any more help just shows a level of immaturity that is unsustainable.

Shannon:

Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. We often don’t think about those other things. The accountant that you need, for some financial support, the lawyer you need for kind of legal and ethical, the massage therapist that I need once a month so that my back doesn’t go out so I can go into work. We don’t think about that stuff, but you’re right, those are very deliberate things that we have put into place as part of our like care team if you look at it, so that we can be really functioning at our best.

Jo:

Yeah. Beautiful. Oh, what a great conversation. I told you it was gonna be a powerful conversation, Shannon. So how can people get in touch with you? How do we find you in the world of the interwebs?

Shannon:

I think the best way would be to go to our website. So it’s firelight supervision.com, and we talk about all the different things to offer. All our services are virtual. So if you’re in a rural area, you’re a different country, you’re somewhere that doesn’t provide that clinical support that you’re looking for, reach out. We can probably do it. We do a lot of group work because we believe in connection and we believe in peers, connecting with each other and learning from each other. So we do a lot of supervision and consultation groups. We also offer monthly professional development trainings, other opportunities to connect. We got a lot going on. So there should be something for everyone.

Jo:

And I would love for anybody to reach out to Shannon as well. And to be really clear, don’t assume that she can’t support you. And I really want to think about the people who listen to this podcast in non-Western countries as well, where I know there isn’t the level of support, but you’re hungry for it. I mean, I have people reaching out to me from Malaysia and Singapore and India and Japan and Korea. This is potentially somewhere that you can go. Shannon is somebody you could potentially go to to seek support especially in those countries who, who are still developing this type of identity for their health professionals. Those of you in developing nations, we really need to support you because there’s not enough of you.

Shannon, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Now when we have the pleasure of meeting each other in real life ’cause Denver, Colorado is kind of on my bucket list, <laugh> not anytime soon. I’ve gotta get over the fact that it takes me 15 hours to get over an a ocean. What coffee am I buying you?

Shannon:

Oh, that is an interesting question. I cannot handle coffee <laugh>.

Jo:

It’s all right. What would be your beverage of choice then? <Laugh>

Shannon:

Beverage of choice is probably some hot tea would be fantastic.

Jo:

Nice.

Shannon:

I would love to connect in person. That would be so fun.

Jo:

I would love to watch you drink tea while I’m sipping my macchiato. Oh, thank you for this episode. And thank you for those of us who have joined us on or on audio version or if you’re watching us on YouTube. This has been a really important conversation and Invite everybody who has been listening today to come and join us in the Future Proofing Health Professionals Facebook group. It’s a free group, but it’s where we talk about these podcast episodes in more depth, where you can ask questions, where you can seek support and resources ’cause If you’re driving with your kids in the car, by the time you get home, you’re gonna forget all the good stuff. I wanna provide a way for you to be able to reconnect with this learning. Until next episode, go be your awesome self.