WP122 | Leading with Wisdom: Adding Supervision to Your Practice with Brittany Schank, LCSW
Are new therapists in your practice getting the supervision they truly need—or just whatever happens to be available? In this episode of the Wise Practice Podcast, Brittany exposes a major flaw in mental health supervision: the widespread mismatch between new clinicians and their assigned supervisors.
She shares how this gap leads to burnout, lack of confidence, and therapists feeling lost in their careers—and more importantly, how her group practice is flipping the script. From passion-based matching to the financial advantages of outsourcing supervision, Brittany’s approach is reshaping the way private practices support their clinicians.
Plus, she introduces The Solace Co. Directory, a game-changing platform connecting therapists with the right supervisors. If you want to ensure your team is supported, thriving, and here to stay, this is an episode you can’t afford to miss!
The Supervision Gap: A Major Issue in the Field
Brittany began by acknowledging a common problem in many mental health agencies: new clinicians often don’t get matched with supervisors who specialize in their area of interest. Instead, they’re assigned to whoever is available, whether that person works with children, adults, or another specialty altogether. This mismatch can result in therapists feeling unsupported and unprepared, leading to quicker burnout.
She noticed this issue when interviewing potential hires. Many had a passion for working with children, for instance, but had never received proper supervision in that area. Without relevant guidance, these clinicians struggled to grow into their desired roles.
A Thoughtful Approach to Supervision in Private Practice
To combat this problem, Brittany structured her group practice to ensure that every therapist gets supervision aligned with their passions. Here’s how it works:
Matching Based on Passion & Personality – When hiring new clinicians, Brittany’s practice asks about their specific interests in therapy. If a clinician’s passion aligns with her or another supervisor in the practice, they provide supervision in-house. If not, they connect the clinician with an external supervisor who specializes in their area.
Set Supervision Times – To create consistency, Brittany's practice arranges for external supervision at a set time every week (Thursdays at noon). This allows for seamless scheduling and ensures that clinicians don’t have to worry about fitting supervision into their busy calendars.
Telehealth Supervision – All supervision is conducted via telehealth, making it more accessible and convenient for clinicians to attend their sessions without leaving the office.
Financial Considerations – While some practice owners worry about the cost of external supervision, Brittany found that outsourcing is often more cost-effective than keeping it in-house. Since an hour of supervision typically costs $75–$100, and insurance reimbursement rates for therapy sessions exceed that, it is financially smarter to allow clinicians to see clients while outsourcing supervision.
The Bigger Picture: Preventing Burnout & Supporting Growth
Brittany emphasized how vital quality supervision is to preventing early-career burnout. When therapists don’t feel competent, they’re more likely to second-guess themselves, feel overwhelmed, and eventually leave the field. By prioritizing strong supervisor-clinician matches, Brittany’s practice helps new therapists grow in confidence, develop their skills, and stay passionate about their work.
Additionally, Brittany introduced The Solace Co. Directory, a nationwide platform where therapists can find supervisors or list themselves as supervisors. This directory aims to bridge the gap between therapists in need of guidance and qualified supervisors looking to mentor.
Final Thoughts
Brittany’s message was clear: supervision isn’t just about meeting licensing requirements—it’s about ensuring new therapists receive the support they need to thrive. The right supervisor can make all the difference in a clinician’s career, setting them up for success rather than frustration and burnout.
If you’re a supervisor looking to connect with more clinicians or a therapist searching for the right mentor, check out Solace Co. Directory. Use the code “freethree” to take advantage of a special deal Brittany is offering to Wise Practice Podcast listeners!
Brittany Schank’s Resources
Website (use the code “freethree”)
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: Hi, I'm Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. Want to grow your practice? Want to grow your faith? Want to enjoy your life outside of work? You've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith based practice while also having a good time.
Now let's get started
[00:00:29] Jingle: where she grows your practice. She don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owens and the wise practice podcast. Whitney Owens and wise practice podcast.
[00:00:48] Whitney Owens: Eight friends, Whitney Owens back in the house. I hope that you have enjoyed the past two episodes with my girl, Amy Dover. She is really incredible. I love having her on the podcast. She's a natural. Let's just get real. And she interviewed the past two weeks and people that were in her mastermind group that have killed it in starting a group practice.
Not only did she do some great interviews, but she also provided some amazing content, such as the difference between a W 1099 model and how do you pay your employees the right rate so that they feel cared for and they can live the life that they need to live, but also the practice makes profit, because if your practice ain't making profit, it ain't growing.
So, Amy had some awesome content, so if you're even considering starting a group practice, maybe you already have a group practice, I encourage you to go back and listen to those episodes so that you can get that great content. Today on the episode, we have Brittany Shank, who's going to talk about supervision and the importance of supervision in your practice.
She provides some good insights on that and some tips on finding supervisors and moving forward. And, you know, supervision's not just about those clinical supervision hours you have to get to get your license. It's about supervision even beyond that. We should all be in supervision on a regular basis.
So Brittany's going to chat about that. Before we go into that though, I like to call these my Whitney isms. I came up with that word the other day because these are things that I feel like I say all the time in my consulting with practice owners. So one of them, I even said this just a few days ago in a webinar, is this.
If you've ever thought about business consulting, though I think everyone should be in business consulting because it's only going to help you grow your business. But if you've ever thought about it, the time to do it is when you're starting a group practice. I cannot emphasize this enough because practice owners come to me down the road, 5 therapists, 10 therapists, 15 therapists, and they need help because their business isn't making profit.
It's not working. These group practice owners are exhausted. They're burnt out. They're overwhelmed because they're having to see too many clients because they didn't run their numbers. Appropriately at the beginning. They didn't hire appropriately at the beginning. And they made these mistakes that then they have to go back and fix.
And it is such a headache, a stress, and a loss of income to the practice owner. So, if it's with Wise Practice, of course I want you to work with us. But, even if it's not. There are some great consultants out there. Make sure that if you're looking to hire, that you get some advice and some direction on that.
Plus, we can save you tons of money, time, and energy by getting into consulting. I know it seems like, oh my gosh, that's hundreds of dollars of every month. Well, guess what? We're gonna save you thousands of dollars by the decisions that you're gonna make when you're in consulting. We have paperwork that's already been approved by attorneys that we can hand to you and you can use in starting your group practice.
Policies, manuals, lots of good stuff. So when you engage with consulting with us, you get access to the last practice membership community with a whole catalog. Not only of courses that you can take to help grow your practice, but all that paperwork, it's pretty amazing to have. So we are launching a mastermind group to help you start a group practice.
So mastermind group is this opportunity to connect with other. They based practice owners around the country that are all starting a group practice at the same time. It's a six month program. We will walk you step by step on how to start a group practice from understanding your culture, your branding for hiring, looking at your systems, making sure they're ready for hiring, identifying the type of therapist you want to hire, what their skill sets can be.
How do you put the job at out there and then going through the hiring process? What are those steps? What do I do? And then let's look at how it's going with the onboarding. The marketing and making sure you're actually making an income and not losing when the therapist starts. I know there's a lot of fears that go into starting a group practice.
I hear them all day long and they are legitimate, but know that we're here to help answer your fears. And guide you in the process, not only as a business consultant, but kind of as a spiritual guide, because God is a part of this work that we're doing, and we're here to help you do that. So to learn more about the upcoming mastermind group, head to wisepracticeconsulting.
com. You'll see a button there for masterminds. You can do the start a group practice mastermind. Amy is going to be leading that mastermind. She has a group practice in Alabama. And like I said, go back and listen to her interviews so you can get to know her, so you can feel comfortable with her. And if you head to the website and you start reading about the mastermind and you're like, I'm still not sure if this is for me, look, no problem.
I'd get you fill out the application. We will get on a call with you, talk through your desires, talk through your goals and make sure this is the best fit. When I started my group practice years ago, this is when I started consulting for the first time. I actually joined a mastermind group. And I had so much success in that mastermind group.
I kept going and I was in a mastermind group for two years. I tell you this because it works. And now I'm sitting here with a group practice with 18 therapists, all private pay opening our additional location and it's happening. And I never would have dreamed. Honestly, I never dreamed I was going to have a group practice, and here I am.
God always has a bigger dream than we do, and he has big things for us to do. And Wise Practice Consulting is here to help you do that. So head to the website, wisepractisconsulting. com, reach out to me with questions. That group starts at the beginning of March, so I think it's the second week, um, we'll be taking applications through the end of February and into the beginning of March, so please make sure to check that out.
Thank you. For being a part of this community and for listening to the podcast, there's so many options out there and it means a lot to me that you take the time to be with us. So we're going to jump into the episode with Brittany talking about supervision in your private practice.
Welcome friends to the wise practice podcast. I am so glad that you're here with me and we are going to be talking about supervision today in our practice and not just about supervision in, But looking at what does it look like and why should we do supervision outside of our practice? I think this is a great topic and I'm looking forward to learning about this.
But before we get into it, I want to introduce you to Brittany Schenck. She is a licensed clinical social worker and the owner of Solis Counseling, located in Fargo, North Dakota. She's a firm believer that we need less fixing and more loving, less perfection and more appreciation for who we are, and less criticism and more encouragement around us.
Brittany can be found in her spare time with her husband chasing around their four children, working at her therapy private practice, or all geared up for her part-time military career. Brittany is an audio book narrator and author of narrating audio books, everything you Need to know to get started.
Brittany identifies herself as a time management guru lover of all things coffee and takes pride in her competitive, but humorous nature. Thank you for coming on the show today.
[00:08:05] Brittany Schank: Thank you for having me, Whitney.
[00:08:07] Whitney Owens: Yes. I love your bio being, and how did you get into being an audio book reader?
[00:08:12] Brittany Schank: I just, I love audio books and I'm always looking for business adventures, to be completely honest.
So I, from a very young age was a Pembroke chef consultant, and I've done kind of everything you can think of. And so, uh, group practice ownership has been really beautiful for me to spread my wings into. But at that time of life, I was a broke college student and I needed some money and I was looking for some.
Ways to make money. And I taught myself how to narrate some audio books.
[00:08:40] Whitney Owens: And that's so funny. I love it. Love it. Well, Brittany, as people are listening, I want them to get to know you before we get into the meat of the episode. Can you share a little bit about your practice, how you got into this field, kind of whatever you want to share.
[00:08:52] Brittany Schank: So I have a group practice in North Dakota. We have two locations. Uh, we have 10 therapists and a really great admin team of four people. When I started group practice or when I started private practice about six years ago, there was no plan to grow. In fact, I didn't know if solo practice was even going to be a successful thing.
And I very clearly. I have memories of saying to my husband, I really hope this doesn't bankrupt our family. And I meant it very genuinely at that time. So I went into private practice, truly looking for some balance in life, which sounds funny. I'm going to open a business to find balance, but it was more of, I wanted time to be mine, to decide how I was going to Use it at that time.
I had two little kids. Now we have four and I wanted to be able to make decisions. Like I want to drop my kids off and pick them up from school and work around those hours. Or I wanted to take off a day for my kids is programs and In the agency world, sometimes it's really hard to find a position that will allow you to do things like that.
So that's the, why I got into private practice and I, I didn't know if it was going to be financially stable or not. I was really hopeful. I was most hopeful though, that it would buy me time from when my kids were little to a little bit bigger. And thankfully it has done that. It's had its ups and downs, of course, but it's provided a lot of, I don't know, like a lot of purpose in life, being able to hire people and, and give them salaries and, and a really good work environment.
And so slowly, but surely I increased a group practice and here I am today.
[00:10:38] Whitney Owens: Thank you for sharing your story. I think it's very relatable. Most of us never thought we would start a group practice and then usually God just kind of came alongside and. Kept tapping us on the shoulder until we did it.
[00:10:50] Brittany Schank: Yes. I, I agree.
It works much smoother if we incorporate God into our decisions. And there was an episode that you had a while back that had talked about praying during and before and during the hiring process and gosh, just so helpful to slow things down and really listen. Like, what am I supposed to be doing here? So really beautiful.
Yeah,
[00:11:13] Whitney Owens: I love that. That actually, I think, was Amy Dover's podcast takeover. She's excellent. All right, so let's talk about supervision. And so, Brittany, what got you into the idea of being so interested in supervision?
[00:11:26] Brittany Schank: Sure. I love providing supervision myself. So from the very beginning, when I started private practice, I did offer supervision services.
I did not feel competent then, however, I did offer them. And so the supervision side of things I have always loved as I have built my group practice, I have started to learn the importance of the right supervisor. And. What that means for specifically new clinicians and how that can like catapult them into the right position when we're making sure we're aligning people with the right supervisor.
Mm hmm.
[00:12:02] Whitney Owens: Yeah. So tell me more
[00:12:03] Brittany Schank: about what that looks like in your group practice. Yeah, sure. You know, I started to, I'll go back to when I started to notice it was a problem, if that's okay. I started to notice it was a problem when we were having people that were applying. For example, we might have somebody apply and in their interview, it was clear that they had a whole heart for kids therapy.
However, they didn't have any supervision. For kids to provide therapy to kids at that point, and typically what was happening is whatever supervisor was at that person's agency is kind of who you got. And so if that person provided therapy for kids or adults or geriatrics, it really didn't matter.
That's just what you got. And so there was this. This gap we were seeing where people had a passion in the field, but did not have supervision to hone in on that passion. And unfortunately, when we follow that, we see burnout really quickly when people are not allowed to practice in their passion.
[00:13:01] Whitney Owens: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:13:03] Brittany Schank: So where we went with that in our practice is I of course did the best that I could to facilitate the supervision that I felt was in alignment with the type of services I provided. So for example, as you read in my bio, I'm a veteran and I love providing services for veterans. So if somebody comes in and that's the service they want to provide, then of course I can provide that supervision.
But when people come in with different passions, so for example, kids, I don't. I don't see many kids and I definitely wouldn't call myself a specialist in kids. So if somebody comes in and they have a specialty in kids and a passion to work with kids, we find supervisors in the community that would align with that individual and we hook them up with that person for supervision.
We look at a couple of things. It is passion and personality. And so the individual that we're hiring actually gets to help pick who that supervisor. Will be, you know, we have a couple that we know very, very well and know the heart of, but they get to identify within their which supervisor would be the best fit for them.
So we can fuel that passion. And so they can feel very competent in the work that they're doing.
[00:14:11] Whitney Owens: Yes, and so I guess the question as a practice center is how do you work this out logistically within your practice and financially? And with their schedule, like, do you let them leave and go do supervision?
And how does that work?
[00:14:26] Brittany Schank: Yeah, all of those are really fair questions. So logistically how we do it is we have a certain time every single week that we. Have worked out with these supervisors that works. It happens for us to be 12 o'clock on Thursdays. So all of them have agreed that, Hey, if we take on a supervisee from your practice, it's going to be Thursdays at 12.
So when we bring that person onto our practice, we automatically just. Block out their schedule for Thursdays at 12 o'clock. The other pieces, they all do it telehealth. So I'm not sure if licensing boards are different in different states on whether they allow telehealth or not, but in our state, as long as it's a video supervision, they're allowed to count it as supervision and it can be over a telehealth.
Platform. So they just hang out at our office, at their desk and do their supervision from their desk. And then financially, we do have a financial agreement that we have with them for supervision. We get a discounted rate because we are a pretty continuous flowing business for them, if you will, or they can anticipate, well, usually always have at least one person eating supervision, if not more.
They know how to work with us, everything's set up. So we do get a discounted rate. So if it's a. If somebody listening has a practice where they do have a consistent stream of people who are in need of supervision, I would attempt to work out a financial deal with them because you'll be a good referral source.
[00:15:54] Whitney Owens: For sure. So do some of the therapists in your practice get supervision from the therapists at your practice and other ones get supervision outside the practice? That's exactly
[00:16:03] Brittany Schank: right. So when we hire If they're in need of supervision, we will ask them, you know, uh, naturally during the interview process, like what's your cup of tea, what fuels your passion for clients serve.
And if it's something that is, there's me and one other supervisor at our practice, if it's something that clearly relates to one of us, then we will provide the supervision. If it's something that, you know, isn't. It isn't relatable to us, and we know that we couldn't do our best providing that supervision.
That's when we refer out for
[00:16:34] Whitney Owens: do you notice any kind of financial hit when you go out for as opposed to staying in house?
[00:16:40] Brittany Schank: Yeah, you know, there is a financial hit, but to be. Totally honest. It's it's cheaper to hire it out than it is to see clients. So is it helpful if I talk logistic numbers right now? Or would you prefer that?
I don't. Yeah. No, that's why I'm asking everybody. Okay. Okay. So in our area, an hour of supervision is anywhere between 75 to 100 reimbursement rates. In our area are they far exceed that. And so if we start to consider taking a therapist out of a session to provide supervision, but that means they're not seeing a client for that hour, you know, we're essentially in the negative in that realm.
So insurance reimbursement rates, you know, they vary greatly because we take Medicaid, Medicare all the way through commercial insurances, but our lowest paying insurance is right around a hundred dollars. So even, you know, right there, there's a discrepancy of 25. So naturally it, it costs less to have supervision go out of house.
If you will, I do still think there are really incredible benefits though, to keeping or allowing it to be in house as well. So having that diversity, I think is, is best case scenario, at least at our practice.
[00:17:56] Whitney Owens: Definitely. I, a couple of thoughts here. I mean, I've, I've noticed at least from, from my practice, financially, I've had some times I've had to, same reason, you know, had people get supervision outside the practice.
I usually save money if they get supervision from someone at the practice, because I can pay them a little bit less than I pay someone outside the practice. Right? So that's definitely something to think about. But I even remember when I was getting my hours, I worked at a psychiatric hospital at the time and they had a supervisor there.
But let me tell you, I did not feel comfortable talking about my work woes with that supervisor. And so I opted to pay for supervision outside. They didn't help me with that because that, that's where I got good supervision.
[00:18:36] Brittany Schank: You know, and we see a lot of that here, Whitney, where a lot of agencies, and I'm not speaking poorly of agencies because I know they do great work as well, but a lot of agencies will require, uh, uh, pretty significant contract with the clinician.
And so here that looks like three to five years. where they'll pay your supervision, but you have to sign on for three to five years. And so we actually have a lot of people that reach out looking for supervision because they're like, Hey, I can't commit to this agency for three to five years. And I fear I'm going to have to pay back money anyways.
So I would prefer to just pay out of pocket for a supervisor so that I don't have to sign this commitment. And I essentially can take that with me and. Don't have fears of having to pay that back. No matter if I stay or go, I can have that freedom. The other thing we see a lot here too, is somebody will be at an agency and there'll be, you know, one or two supervisors providing that service, but it's kind of like a get in line sort of thing.
Like once they're done with the people that they're providing supervision to. Then the next people that got hired are out, then the next people. And so sometimes it can take years even to actually like get your spot for supervision. So it is a really nice opportunity for people to be able to look outside of their practice.
And as a practice owner, it's a nice offer to give to the community to say, Hey, yo, we provide supervision here. It can be a nice stream of income as well on, on the side. It's not on the side, but it's a different way of getting income as well. Because if. You know, if that's happening here and people are seeing that in their location, that means there's people looking for some really good supervision.
[00:20:10] Whitney Owens: Mm hmm. Definitely. I find it kind of heartbreaking some thinking they're here. All these therapists that could be going and getting their licenses and doing more mental health therapy, but they're waiting on all these hours of supervision. It's terrible.
[00:20:22] Brittany Schank: I agree. And then you think of the burnout, like, you know, in those beginning years where you're so fragile and you're not sure if you're doing what's right.
And you're like, I have this client that's really tough. And so, you know, we're probably talking to our, our coworkers about it, but if we're not getting true supervision, we already have a problem in our field. How quickly are people burning out because they're lacking competence and what they're doing?
So it is heartbreaking. I agree with you.
[00:20:47] Whitney Owens: Well, there's definitely a lot of examples here for reasons to get supervision outside your practice that I have found very good to be talking about. And so if somebody's listening, I know you have a company program for them. So could you talk a little bit about that?
[00:21:01] Brittany Schank: Yeah, of course. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to talk about it. The Solace Code Directory is a directory where therapists can list if they provide supervision or consultation services. And essentially it's a bio that you put up where you can put your picture, you put your bio, you identify what therapeutic modalities you use, do you provide business consultation or clinical consultation.
It's a thorough yet quick to fill out Uh, background on you where essentially you can identify to the world that you offer these services. One of the downfalls that we often see is people are not linked up with the right supervisor or the right consultant because they just don't know where to look. So they're asking a friend, like, Hey, who are you getting consultation with?
But that, that person might be great for your friend. It doesn't mean that they're a great fit for you. And so we're hoping that this directory provides the ability for people to find the right consultant. The right supervisor that truly fits their needs and personality in one place instead of just the word of mouth or waiting for your supervisor at the agency to kind of get to you.
[00:22:09] Whitney Owens: That's such a good fit. Now, is this a nationwide kind of thing?
[00:22:13] Brittany Schank: It sure is. Yep. It's nationwide. It's a newer directory. So we're, we're bolstering it and building it there. You know, there's probably a several hundred users on it right now. We're. Getting the word out with all of the schools for social work programs and counseling programs and marriage and family therapy programs to let their graduates know, Hey, this is a resource for right outside of, of school to try and get that, that link there.
[00:22:38] Whitney Owens: Great, so this is a resource for people listening that are supervisors wanting to add more people to their caseload in that way. And then also for people who are looking for a supervisor. Correct. That's right. Wonderful. Well, is there anything else that we missed talking about supervision? Maybe that you wanted to make sure to include today?
I just,
[00:22:57] Brittany Schank: I hope I got the, the, uh, message across that the match is so important. It's, it's just like finding the right therapist. The match is so important and making sure that we feel competent and, and good in our field and let's prevent burnout and give some good supervision.
[00:23:13] Whitney Owens: That's totally, totally accurate.
I can think about the times I got it in house and the times I got it out of house and the different personalities. And so you're offering an important service there for people. And then. For those that are listening, Brittany has an amazing deal for you. So can you tell them where to go and what the deal is?
[00:23:31] Brittany Schank: Yes. So you can go to SolaceCodeDirectory. com. And when you sign up on there, if you use the code FREE3, all spelled out, FREE3, then you can get three free months of listing on our directory service.
[00:23:47] Whitney Owens: Awesome. Well, Brittany, you're doing some important work in the world. You're doing the supervision. You're running a group practice.
You're taking care of your family. You got it going on and doing some audiobooks.
[00:23:58] Brittany Schank: Yeah, yeah, you're right. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate being on here and getting the opportunity to talk to your beautiful listeners.
[00:24:06] Whitney Owens: Oh, well, thank you. We appreciate you being on the chat.
[00:24:09] Brittany Schank: Thank you.
[00:24:12] Jingle: So click on, follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:24:31] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. The wise practice podcast is part of the site craft podcast network, a collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives to learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network head on over to site craft network dot com.
The wise practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
