Supervision for the Continuing Competence Framework for Recertification (CCFR)

The OTBNZ’s Code of Ethics for Occupational Therapists (2004, Section A3.8) and Continuing Competence Framework for Recertification both require that all occupational therapists receive effective professional supervision relevant to their work setting.  Because of the opportunity it affords to receive feedback and guidance, supervision is considered a critical component of continuing competence. 

Practitioners with a condition on their scope of practice must ensure that they obtain supervision that complies with that condition; however this is different from the supervision they obtain for their CCFR. 

The role of the CCFR supervisor is to assist the practitioner to reflect critically on his/her work, and give feedback and guidance in order that the practitioner can maintain and develop their competence and deliver safe and effective service to consumers. CCFR supervision may incorporate any aspect of the professional role e.g. clinical, managerial, or cultural.  While it is optional for the CCFR supervisor to record comments under each competency area in the practitioner’s CCFR, such comments do enable practitioners to demonstrate that they are using supervision to maintain and develop their competence via the CCFR.

A CCFR supervisor should be person who has sufficient self-awareness, interpersonal competence, and knowledge of processes relevant to the area of practice of the supervisee, to facilitate that person's professional development.  Frequency and mode of supervision vary according to professional needs, resources, context, and level of experience, and may incorporate any aspect of the professional role e.g. clinical, managerial or cultural. A practitioner may choose to have different CCFR supervisors for different roles, and these supervisors may be from other disciplines

Where a CCFR supervisor is also expected to provide supervision for work place related issues, both the supervisor and supervisee need to be clear about when they are dealing with employment related issues and when they are dealing with the CCFR.   Supervision for the CCFR should focus on ongoing competence and should facilitate reflection on practice in a safe environment.

A CCFR supervisor may or may not be the person who makes the third-party attestation for recertification.  However, the supervsior would need to meet the criteria to be a third party – ie, they must be a registered occupational therapist with a current practising certificate and no conditions on their scope of practice.

A supervision log should be maintained to record details of the nature and frequency of supervision.  This provides further evidence of the use of supervision to ensure ongoing competence to practice.