Connecting Therapists & Supervisors: Canadian Clinical Supervision Directory with Kayla Das

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Thriving Therapy Noir podcast. I'm your host, Carly Hill, and today I am thrilled to introduce you to an amazing guest. Her name is Kayla Doss. She's a Canadian social worker, business coach, and she is the host of not only one, but two podcasts. She is Go Getter, the Designer Practice podcast, and your Clinical supervisors couch podcast. She's also the founder of the Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory, and that's what we're going to talk about today, more in depth. And this is really a resource that's making waves for clinical supervisors and therapists across Canada. So I know most of you tuning in are from the States, but I have many, many Canadian clients that are looking to expand, expand into coaching. So, hello, my Canadian therapist friends. If you are listening today, this episode is going to bring so much value to you. Kayla has an incredible background in therapeutic recreation social work. She's on a mission to help therapists design a private practice they love as well. You wear so many different hats. Kayla, can you please introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit more about your journey? Welcome to the show, Kayla.

Thanks, Carly. And honestly, you did an amazing introduction for me, so I don't know what else to say. But as Carly said, my name is Kayla Das. I'm a registered social worker in Alberta, Canada. I'm from Newfoundland, Canada, originally. And even though this episode is going to be speaking about the Canadian therapist, the Canadian Supervision Therapist Directory, there will be a lot of value for your American listeners in. In this episode too. So I just wanted to to call you out, American listeners. You are seen here today as well. And I hope that anyone that also is providing clinical supervision services or a therapist looking for a therapist looking for a clinical supervisor is going to be able to, you know, take away, have some takeaways from today. Yeah.

First off, I also just have to tell everyone I'm gonna paint a picture. You look beautiful right now. You did your hair and your makeup, and I'm sitting here in my gym clothes because you had asked me last week when I was actually on your podcast, like, is this gonna be video also? And I do put these on YouTube. So you got all dolled up and I'm sitting here in a baseball cap. It's just funny. So everyone watch the YouTube so you can see how beautiful Kayla looks. I digress. So let's talk about why you created this clinical supervision journey, why you even went down this journey in the first place. Because I am a clinical supervisor myself, and I know that one when I was Trying to find a supervisor, it was pretty difficult. And then when I wanted to advertise my services for clinical supervisors vision and I was putting myself on directories, there honestly wasn't that many directories that I could put myself on that I felt were actually worth it. I think we have more directories here in the States than you have, which is why you filled that gap and you created this directory. Right? But it can be difficult and it's definitely an area of need to connect therapists and supervisors. So would you mind just telling us, like, where did this idea come from? Are you a supervisor yourself or was this a challenge that you had to go through or you just an innovator and you notice the gap in the field? How did this come about?

I love that question. And there's actually a, a little bit of a journey that if I look back, kind of brought me here, even though at the time I really didn't know this is where I was going to be. So first of all, as business coach, I'm often meeting with therapists and clinical supervisors, you know, helping them grow their practices. And the constant theme that I hear is therapists having a difficult time finding clinical supervisors and then clinical supervisors having spaces available for supervisees, and yet they can't find, you know, people to fill their spaces. And I realize there's a gap into how clinical supervisors advertise their services. In addition, with the lack of, with the lack of resources available for clinical supervisors to, you know, to find therapists and vice versa, specifically, like, like you said here in Canada, because there are a couple directories in the US but here in Canada there isn't any. So that was kind of, I guess, the idea of where it came from. However, when I first started my private practice, I also was looking for a clinical supervisor kind of to tick that box, right, because we think, you know, our ethical standards tell us that we need to have either consultation or clinical supervision. But it took me a long time to find a clinical supervisor. And when I finally found one, I took the first one that I could find because that's the only one that I could find. And she was an amazing supervisor. Although it wasn't a good fit. We didn't work with the same type of clients, we didn't work from the same type of therapeutic modalities. And I was just starting out in private practice and I left every clinical supervision session feeling so defeated. I actually, I'm pretty sure I cried more at these sessions than anything. And it was because I just felt that I had no idea what she was talking about. I just felt like I was, you know, a bad therapist. But what it was is she come from therapeutic modalities and therapeutic orientation that I do not come from. And that's why it was all new information for me. However, later on, she was nice enough to say, you know what, Kayla, I think this is just not a fit, and I think you need to find another person to mentor you. And as a result, I found my next clinical supervisor who was fabulous. She worked in the same therapeutic modalities. I left feeling empowered, supported, and so forth. And I never really thought about it again until hearing the constant, you know, therapists trying to find clinical supervisors, but can't. And then clinical supervisors trying to find therapists to fill those spaces but can't. And I'm like, yeah, this is more common than it needs to be. And I'm like, how can I help clinical supervisors connect with each other? And that's where the your clinical supervisors coach podcasts come from, as well as the Canadian supervision therapist directory as well.

Awesome. So it was born through your own experience. And I can so relate to this. I think it could be more easy to just find a supervisor. Right? But finding a supervisor that is the right fit. Even back when I was in community mental health, before I started my private practice and I was given a supervisor there, I didn't vibe with her because we didn't align with the type of ideal clients that we were seeing. Like, I had a heavy focus on kids and doing play therapy at the time. And just even the personality clashes, I feel like weren't the best fit. And I remember they hired a new supervisor and she was in her office and I walked in and I demanded. I was like, you are going to be my new supervisor. And we're friends and colleagues to this day, we laugh about that story. But it is so incredibly important for our clinical growth to have the right fit for our supervisor. And you can go on Google or you can go on Facebook groups, or you can word of mouth, find a supervisor. But would you agree with me that this is one of the cons without having a directory is you're kind of just dealt these cards that maybe worked for someone else, but is not necessarily going to fit with you.

I would agree. Like, I think that by having a directory, it's a centralized location where someone can find their fit. Right? There's. We'll talk about different ways that you can find a clinical supervisor, and we'll also talk about the pros and cons of each. And there are pros in many ways. I mean, I did find a clinical supervisor without a directory, but in saying that it's a centralized place where you can find, you know, a supervisor that's a fit. You can, you know, look through their profile. You can tell, you know, what therapeutic modalities are they working from, who are they working with, how many years of experience have they been working, you know, which therapeutic approaches are they working from, you know, what is their approach to clinical supervision? Like, these are things that we took into consideration when creating the directory, because that is what a. A therapist or allied health professional would want to know when trying to find a clinical supervisor. And sometimes even when we're finding people's websites, you know, it's usually just kind of like a page off to the side of I provide clinical supervision. And it's like not a whole lot of information about all of this information of, you know, we want, you know, what's the approach to clinical supervision or all of these types of things. So we kind of thought about it all so that. That clinical. The clinical supervisors and consultants can really advertise the information that their potential supervisees or other therapists want to see.

It's kind of reminding me it's like the clinical supervision directory version of Psychology Today where somebody could go on and they could, if they're trying to find a therapist filter, they want male or female, they have this insurance, they want in person, or they want virtual. They have, you know, this sort of problem that they're going through. Like, you're using systems and technology to your advantage to fill the gap and fill the void. Right.

Exactly. And our directory has all of that. Like, you're able to filter by province, you're able to filter by profession, you're able to filter by keywords, right? Just type in, you know, cbt and, you know, CBT therapists are going to pop up. And again, we thought about all that because again, that, you know, different things matter to different therapists. But overall, the whole goal is to find the right fit. So whatever that means, whether it's the person in the same province as you to someone from the same profession as you, you can even, you know, have multiple keywords that you want to. Want to plug in, because maybe it's, you know, you want someone from your province, but you also want someone, you know, with cbt so you can, you know, put in those multiple keywords to find, you know, clinical supervisors within that respect.

One challenge I remember when I was trying to find a supervisor when I started was none of the directories were up to date. I feel like they were all old and I was like calling and emailing all of these supervisors and I just wouldn't hear anything back or their number wouldn't even be active. So how are you solving that problem in making sure that the directory is always up to date?

Well, I love that, and you know what I say about that is usually when people are paying for a directory, they are going to keep it either up to date or at least be available. And the reason is because they're constantly paying every month or every year. One of the challenges, and this is actually one of the cons with any clinical directory, with any therapist directory, whether it's, you know, for therapists or clinical supervisors, is that, you know, someone may actually have a full practice yet still pay for their listing, right? You might still reach out to someone. They either may not have a spot available or they might not get back to you based on their own business practices. And unfortunately that's something that's outside of the control of really any therapist directory. And that is one of the cons. But it's also the same con of, you know, if you found them on their website, right, because you could still reach out and still not get a response. They're Google business pages. You can still reach out and not get a response. But I like to believe if people are putting like investing into the directory, that they are actively accepting clinical supervisors, actively accepting therapists, and likely going to reach out to you and let you know that they have space or you know, reach out and say they don't.

And that was actually a problem too. When I became a supervisor myself, where I got my training from, they offered it as like a bonus or like a part of the package where then I could be listed on their directory, right? But it was like lifetime access. Like I guarantee I'm probably still on this directory and I don't take therapists anymore for supervision. So that's a perfect example of, you know, you pay for it one time, you get this lifetime access, or let's say you pay for a five year plan and things can change and you're no longer offering these services in your practice as a supervisor, yet you're getting all of these therapist hopes up and they're reaching out to you and then they're just being ghosted, right? So the model of continuously paying and not having. You don't have like a lifetime option, do you?

No, we don't have a lifetime option. We have a yearly option. And then of course it renews the following year. Another thing though, that you made me think about another issue with, with some therapist directories, again, clinical supervisor or therapist is there's usually an algorithm connected with many of the therapist directories. And when you reach out or they're like, we'll just use, you know, like a therapist specific directory as an example. If a client was reaching out to you, sometimes they'll put their name into a form and they'll kind of give you a little bit of information. Sometimes that algorithm is meant to filter out spam. So as a result, sometimes it actually filters out real clients. And then so some clients will reach out and say, you know, I reached out to this person. But you as a therapist never got that email because that filter had filtered it out of spam. Our directory actually is a little different that we don't have that setup. We actually just let you advertise your phone number, your website, your, your social media platforms, whatever it is on the platform so that people have to reach out to you direct, directly. Now they can click on the link to your website, but it shows your website URL that it's not getting kind of saved or tracked through our system. It's literally, you know, if I'm reaching out to Carly, I'm going to carlyhill coaching. Com. I'm not putting my information into a form that then gets filtered out by spam. Now if that person's website has a spam filter might be a little different, but that's outside of. Because we do know that it's a pro and a con to therapist directories. Is that, I mean, therapists don't want spam. But then it also sometimes removes actual clients because it identifies it as spam.

Right. Makes perfect sense. It's genius. What other cool features? I'm really curious because you just launched this not too long ago, right? And we talked about how you're using technology and you're leveraging technology where they can filter by province, theoretical orientation, whether they want individual or group sessions. So you have all of that down. What other cool features do you have that most directories don't have? Maybe we can talk about SEO for a minute as well because I know you're big on SEO in your, in all of your business endeavors actually. And how, you know, showing up on Google, on the first page of Google is, is going to be beneficial for these supervisors as well. And a win win where it's going to help the therapist. Is there any other features that are coming to mind with your directory?

Yeah, well, like I said, we really thought about what do therapists want and what do clinical supervisors need to advertise. So at least here in Canada there isn't a directory. So we're kind of got all the features that no other therapist or no other clinical supervisor directory has because we're the only one. But something that we do have that a lot of therapist directories don't is we even allow you to advertise your hours of operation. Right. It's almost like a listing, like a business listing. And that's really helpful because I just know myself as a therapist. If I'm looking for a clinical supervisor and maybe I'm working, you know, Monday to Friday in a full time job and then I'm doing, you know, my private practice after hours, but then the clinical supervisor doesn't have any evening hours. I'm going to want to know that. So I don't want to waste that clinical supervisor's time. But I also, you know, know if their hours of operation are not evening, it's not going to be helpful. So as a result, we allow you to advertise your hours. You can just keep it as any time because maybe you're someone who, you know, might make exceptions for specific people or you might have many hours. You don't necessarily have to use it. You can just say, I'm available anytime during the week. But this can be really helpful because again, it's for the clinical supervisor. If you have a lot of people reaching out and they all want evening and you can't provide it, you're spending a lot of time doing those consults or those chats and you already can't fulfill this person's needs. So that's one feature we added in. We also include who you provide clinical supervision for. So even though I'm using the word clinical supervision kind of interchangeably, but as we know, sometimes people provide clinical supervision and clinical consultation. So clinical supervision is for someone who you know isn't yet qualified to provide therapy, whereas clinical consultation is someone who is available. Clinical consultation is for someone who you know is a full fledged therapist. But they're looking for ongoing consultation with respect to that. I'm going to stop for a second because I don't know if you. Can you hear the ambulance in the background? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think you're, I think they're gone now. We'll pick up here. Another neat thing that we have as well is at least here in Canada, some people have different credentials. So maybe you're an EMDR consultant or maybe you have the RCSW credential, which is kind of like the LCSW credential in. In the U.S. however, only certain provinces have that here. With that, you might want an RCSW clinical supervisor. And so we allow you to be able to list special designations that you hold. Because again, a supervisee, if they're, you know, just completed their EMDR training, may want a EMDR consultant. And they can easily see it on your. On your dashboard, on your profile. So that. Excuse me. They can easily see it on your listing. And they know that you're the right fit. So we really, really worked hard at how can we make this a good fit.

Yeah, you have thought of everything. It seems like this is very well thought out. I'm really excited for you in this journey. It's been amazing watching you grow and support therapists in so many different ways. For all the Canadian listeners, where can they check out the Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory? Where can they find more information about this?

Yeah, so they can find it at the. Sorry, it's like, literally right out my door. We never have ambulances, but there's obviously one, like, right outside my door. Okay, that's gone. Sorry. So listeners can find it at the Canadian Clinical Supervision. Sorry. Listeners can find it at canadianclinicalsupervision. Cat 1 side note, because again, we'll cut this out, but did you want me to go through those five ways to find a clinical supervisor? Because I, I thought that's what we're going to do, but if not, that's fine, too.

I mean, I feel like we already alluded to all of them because we talked about, like, word of mouth, we talked about Facebook groups, and we talked about Google. So I don't really think it's necessary. I feel like we already actually covered all of those points. If you go back in.

Okay, perfect. So maybe the one.

Yeah, I. I had it up, but we've covered it all.

Okay. So maybe the one thing to cut out at the beginning of the episode was that I did mention this will be valuable to American listeners because that we're going to go through it and it may not be as valuable as I thought it was going to be for American listeners, but. Okay, so I'm just gonna. I'm gonna pick up. There's one thing you mentioned, though, about the SEO. So I think I'm gonna kind of go back there before I say, say the, the email just. Or the website just, because I think that might be helpful, too. So one thing that you mentioned earlier, you asked me about SEO, because I am Such an SEO nerd. And I absolutely love SEO. So you know, when we think of some therapist directories and you know, psychology today is, has such high SEO. Like it's been around forever, you know, if you look it up on like for domain authority, it's like 90 something, you know, and they, they spent a lot of time with SEO. Now we are a newer listing, we are a newer website. So as a result we're still building our SEO. But what's really great about the Canadian Supervision Therapist Directory is the Canadian Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory is that we don't have any competition. So if you look us up, we're already ranking on the first page of Google when you're up like clinical supervision content. Also because SEO is something that I've been implementing in my own business for years, we create lots of content. So we have obviously the your clinical supervisors couch podcast. So that gets listed on our website, which also helps our SEO. We have weekly, sometimes we try to do it twice a week blogs that are high topics for clinical supervision and clinical consultation to help improve our SEO. Because again as a clinical supervisor, if you're looking to list you're you going to want this directory to be ranking otherwise you're going to be paying money for, for no reason. So we know that and we actually have been implementing this strategy since September of last year, even though the directory has only been live since the end of January. So we've been implementing our SEO strategy even before we went live, so that we already were ranking before we even went live. So, so that's something that we put in into place. We really thought about it instead of just saying, hey, here's a directory and now we're going to start building because then you're not going to see any supervisees come in from that. And then as a result we make sure that you get or you know, we're hoping that you'll get supervisees with that. So you did mention also you said like, how do people connect with this directory? So Our website is CanadianClinicalSupervision CA and it's free to search through listings if you're a therapist, Canadian therapist, wanting to search, even if you're American, you just want to look, just kind of see what it's all about, feel free. And then if you're a clinical supervisor, it's low monthly, it's low subscription rates. We do have monthly and we have yearly subscriptions and you can cancel at any time. So there's no, you know, commitment. Obviously if you sign up for a year. You're kind of, you know, committing to a year. But if you want to be taken down before that, you can. We don't provide refunds for a year subscription, but in saying that hopefully you're still wanting to be a clinical supervisor for that year. But you can also just go on our monthly subscription. If you cancel, you can easily sign up for another profile in the future. So maybe you fill up your clinical supervision sessions and you're like, you know what, I don't need the directory anymore. You can cancel and sign up again in the future.

I love that. Yeah, weave in flexibility. I will include all of this information in the show notes as well, so you can easily click on that and check out the directory. But thank you again, Kayla, for being on this show. And until next time, therapynewers, I will see you in the next episode. Take care.