Characteristics of Clinical Supervision Associated With Improvements in Youth Outcomes in Community Mental Health Clinics

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined the associations of youths' mental health outcomes with exposure of their treating clinicians to psychotherapy skill rehearsal and data-based feedback during clinical supervision. METHODS: The authors of this longitudinal observational study used linear mixed models to examine how characteristics of supervision received by 108 clinicians in 19 community mental health clinics related to changes in caregiver-rated mental health of 357 youths within 6 months after treatment initiation. RESULTS: Youths treated by a clinician who had received higher levels of data-based feedback and skill rehearsal during clinical supervision had greater and faster improvements in mental health. The improvement was 1.35 and 1.21 times greater for youths whose clinicians received high versus low levels of data-based feedback and skill rehearsal, respectively. Neither the total amount of supervision time nor the time dedicated to clinical content was associated with a change in the youths' mental health conditions. CONCLUSIONS: This study offers the first empirical evidence that clinical supervisors' use of therapy skill rehearsal and data-based feedback in community mental health settings may enhance improvement of youths' mental health.