Integrating Intersectional Identity into Clinical Supervision

Differentiated from general social work supervision, clinical supervision is a core means by which post-graduate clinical social workers develop and refine their professional skills and ethical practice, and secure terminal licensure. The integration of the supervisee’s composite intersecting aspects of identity, which is conceptualized here as their intersectional identity, is a critical component of clinical supervision given the ethical demands of the profession, the nature of growth and regrowth that occurs in any educational process, and the impact each clinical social worker’s self has on their own clinical practice (Association of Social Work Boards, 2013; Bubar, Cespedes, & Bundy-Fazioli, 2016; Kolb, 1984). The structure and relationship of clinical supervision has a significant role in supporting supervisees as they begin to incorporate aspects of their intersectional identities with their clinical social work practice. This dissertation offers recommendations from the existing body of literature and the results of an exploratory qualitative study on how themes and concepts from intersectionality and intersectional identity might be integrated into clinical supervision.