[JOE]:
From the moment you say to yourself, I want to start a private practice, until you hit six figures, Next Level Practice is for you. It can be so confusing to know where to spend your time and your energy, what things you actually need to get your practice going, and what things really can wait till later. And whether you’re growing a telehealth practice or an in-person practice, the SEO, the blogging, getting the right clients, and knowing what to do can be so darn confusing. Well, that’s why we started Next Level Practice. Next Level Practice is a membership community of over 400 clinicians just like you who are starting and growing their practice. We have three or four live events every month, we talk about what’s working, you get to go into a small group of eight people or so to really hash through what it takes to grow a private practice. You get an accountability partner and access to over 30 eCourses. Also, we bring in experts every single month that you can pick their brains to know exactly what to do next. If you’re looking to be most effective with your time and your money, Next Level Practice is for you. We have a cohort opening on August 24th. Now these only open a couple times a year, so you’re gonna want to get in. You can sign up to get all of the invites over at practiceofthepractice.com/invite if you want to be a part of this cohort. I would love to help you continue to grow your practice or to start a new one. Again, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/invite.

This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 479.

I’m Joe Sanok, your host. You know, if you have listened to this podcast for more than a year, and your name is Mary, or Latoya, or Jeff, or let’s pick another, Maria, I want to say welcome, really glad you’re here. I am so glad to have people that are listening to this podcast and to see the reviews come in and read how this podcast is helping people – it’s just awesome to see. So, I’m so excited for you to be listening to this because I know that today, you’re gonna learn quite a bit from Brittany Schank. She’s gonna be talking all about how to find a supervisor, and some really great tips that I hadn’t thought through in regards to just supervision and things like that. So, without any further ado, here is Brittany.

Today on the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Brittany Schank. Brittany is a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Solace 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, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.

[BRITTANY]:
Thank you so much for having me here. I’m honored.

[JOE]:
Yeah, I’m glad that you’re here. Well, we were just talking about how you’re from Fargo and you’ve never seen the TV show Fargo?

[BRITTANY]:
That’s correct.

[JOE]:
I’ve seen a couple episodes on an airplane, but I imagine that’s something that you know, people from… are you Fargoeans? How do you name yourselves in Fargo?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, we don’t really call ourselves Fargoeans. We have the NDSU Bison is our college football team here. And so, I think we probably more go by Bison than we do Fargoeans. I’m not sure if [unclear] go by that; we’d probably answer to it though.

[JOE]:
Well, so you’re a social worker there. You’ve got a counseling practice. Maybe let’s just start with tell us about your practice, how it’s gone in regards to like when you launched it, and then we’ll dive into kind of some of the consultation and supervision work you’ve been doing.

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So, my practice, Solace Counseling, just opened last year in July. And so, prior to that, I was working at an agency that was my first job outside of college, and kind of honed in on my skills there. We worked with pretty significant child abuse cases and child neglect cases. And so, court was common, and just some pretty significant stories that we heard there. So, it was actually a really beautiful foundation for some really tough work, and a really good exposure to quite a bit of trauma. And so, I always say like, I came from a chaotic childhood, and so I create chaos in my adult life and just fingers crossed that the chaos is really good, productive chaos, and not chaos that is negatively affecting me. But so, I’m always kind of dreaming, and owning a private practice has always been a dream of mine that I questioned, quite honestly, if I ever could attain. But after getting the experience that I had at the agency, essentially, that I was at, I felt more confident to be able to go on my own. And so it was a really scary experience, and I was able to surround myself around a really good group of people that kind of helped get me through the weeds and helped me find my worth in it and that’s when Solace Counseling was formed. And so, I’ve been in business almost a year now. And I say all the time that it’s one of the best things that ever happened, and really freed me up to do some of the things I love, while I can still be a therapist and doing some other outside activities as well that really just fuel my fire.

[JOE]:
Yeah, no, how long were you planning before you launched the practice? Some people will take a really long time and plan out every single step, other people will just kind of get the bare minimum going and then see how it goes. What was your process in the lead up to starting your practice?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, well, that’s a really interesting piece because when I was at the agency that I was at, that’s when I had started considering owning my own private practice. And at that agency, they had both employees and independent contractors. And so, I was kind of in my position of going from an employee to an independent contractor, because I’d gotten fully licensed. And that was kind of my goal, was I’ll be an independent contractor here and keep it safe, and then I’ll open my private practice and I’ll be safe too and see if I like it or not. And kind of how things turned up is the agency that I was at was like, meh, we don’t really like that so much. And that’s totally understandable. And so, I really came to a crossroads of having to decide what am I going to do and so I put it in really high gear, in deciding that I’m going to put everything I have into private practice, and cross my fingers and kind of jump with my eyes closed and my heart really close to me. And so, I truly went about forming private practice very, very quickly, based upon it ended up being I really had to choose if I was going to stay at that agency or not. And so, it went very, very quickly. I would say the private practice, Solace Counseling, was formed in a matter of probably 60 to 90 days, max.

[JOE]:
Wow. So then as you kind of launched, what were some of the first things that you were kind of working on and major priorities in the first few months?

[BRITTANY]:
Well, you know, the thing I was the most scared of was billing. You know, that was the one thing that I would be up at night, thinking of like, how does billing work? How am I going to do this, and it was an area I didn’t have any, truly, any experience in. So, my biggest pieces that kept me up at night and that I worried about were billing and office space. We’re really, really fortunate, ironically, in Fargo, where we don’t have very many therapists based upon the number of clients who need to be seen. And so, I wasn’t super, super concerned. I was concerned, but I wasn’t super concerned about referrals. I was far more concerned about policies, office space, and billing.

[JOE]:
Gotcha. And then as it started to grow over the… past just the startup, what challenges did you run into?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges that I faced is just not having people around, not having people to consult with, not having people where you can run out of your office, find which friend has an open door and run in there and say, like, hey, dude, I got to talk about something. I’m not quite sure if this went right. What are your thoughts on this? So, I would say the biggest hurdle for somebody like me who likes to be around people and get that feedback was absolutely not having people right by me that I could get that feedback from.

[JOE]:
Yeah, I know I see in Michigan, there’s so few supervisors that are licensed to do supervision here and that idea of guidance kind of early, not only in the business side of it, but the clinical side is often really hard unless you’re at an agency, but then you’re making $30,000 or $40,000 a year. And then in Michigan, you know, when you have your Limited License, you can go into private practice, and that’s true in many states and not true in other states. What are some of the things that you were able to do to overcome that once you started your private practice, to be able to connect with other people for some consultation?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, so that’s really where the consultation and supervision directory was formed. Because when I thought about I need somebody to consult with, I’m not quite sure who to consult with, and I didn’t want just any consultant. I wanted somebody who was working on cases that were similar to the clients I was seeing. So, like I had said, the kind of niche we were in or that I was in at the agency I was in was a pretty specific niche, where consultation from just anybody didn’t feel appropriate. I needed somebody who was used to being in the courtroom, somebody who was used to child abuse, somebody who was used to the assessments that we use or similar assessments, people that are commonly diagnosing things like PTSD in children. And so that’s really where this formed is because I didn’t quite know where to go. I tried googling, often, like who provides consultation for this niche? And it was really, really difficult. I was hoping to get somebody who was face to face. And so that kind of formed my desire to create the consultation and supervision directory. Along with that there was this issue inside of me of, I wanted to provide supervision and I had no idea where to market it. And so kind of pulling those two things together along with my experience of those being difficult to find is where I essentially said like, hold on, I wonder if we can create something to allow these to kind of all pull together, to help people looking for these services and to help people market their services?

[JOE]:
So, a lot of people will be frustrated when they see a need and there’s not a solution. How did you go from that to saying, hey, I want to launch a website for consultation and supervision services?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, so kind of like I said, I’m a survivor of a chaotic childhood which means that you have to – and I need to add, my family is fantastic. Life was just always… there were always kind of grenades going off. And so, you learn very quickly that the easiest person to rely on is yourself, and those really, really close to you. And so, it was something that was inherent in me of I didn’t see it out there. I didn’t know how to find something specifically, like, what it was I had in my mind. And so really I hunkered in with the people really close to me who I really appreciate their opinion on. And that is when the directory was essentially first formed. And I reached out to a really, really fantastic friend that is a web developer and said, like, is this possible? And one of the kind of mottos I go by is just day by day, because if I look at too big of a picture, it feels very overwhelming to me. And so literally the directory was formed day by day, in knowing what my end goal was, and not knowing how I was going to get to the next step. And so, one step at a time, one day at a time, day by day, hunkering in and figuring out what needed to be done to create the directory.

[JOE]:
So, what were some of those day by day steps? Because I think about Clay Cockrell who launched onlinecounseling.com, that directory, and I have other friends that have launched different types of directories. What were some of the core things that helped you sketch out what you wanted, and then work with your web designer to get that going?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, so a huge piece of it was the collaboration piece of it. So for the web developer and designer to tell me what it was that could and couldn’t be done, and then also to like, not hinder my dreaming, because it came up frequently where there was something I wanted, but I thought, well, it’s impossible for that to be done. So, for example, on the directory, my vision was that I wanted there to be a picture of the United States when somebody pops on. So, they can literally look and see how many people across the United States are available to assist them. So they don’t, they don’t feel that feeling that I felt when I was looking for a consultation of there’s nobody out there, for them to literally look at this map and see like, well look at that, there are a lot of people out there that can help me. And then they have the ability to modify and kind of hone in on those specialties that they feel like are important. So perhaps that’s a niche, or perhaps that’s a years of service, or perhaps that’s a location. So those were things that I dreamed of, and that I was hopeful could be in there. But I truly had no idea, and really needed to lean on the web developer and the feedback from people saying, you know, this is missing something that it needs, or you didn’t think of this piece because it’s not involved, and could it be involved. And so, I think just such a big piece of that was the collaboration piece and being willing to listen, and also being willing to speak my voice if there was something that I thought would be helpful.

[JOE]:
Now, are you collecting much data in regards to like what type of supervisors or consultants people are looking for on the website?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, absolutely. So, whenever I’m able to get feedback, there’s a feedback section on there, on if there’s anything that I’m missing, we have been extremely responsive of if somebody comes on and says, like, hey, there’s a niche you missed. And let’s just say it’s PTSD. We have been extremely responsive and really do request anybody who has feedback, if it’s missing something, we want this to be able to be inclusive, and for the benefit of both the person listing their services and the person looking. And I think that truly was another hurdle, now that you bring that up, is how do we get what people need? How do we get all of… you know, I haven’t been in practice for 20 years. I only have a certain level of knowledge. And so, through research and through listening to other people, building the website to what it is that people are in need of, that would help.

[JOE]:
So, what are some of the top maybe topic areas people are looking for supervisors or consultants around?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, I would say the biggest piece that it seems like people are looking for are specialties such as eating disorders, specialties such as PTSD, like I had just brought up. Specialties like EMDR is one of them that’s extremely sought after on the website. The website allows you to customize a lot, so we’ve been able to gather research on like, are there a significant number of people looking for males over females? Are there a significant number of people who care about the state or not? And so that has all been stuff that we’ve been able to watch and keep track of, and it’s been kind of cool to see the statistics behind it.

[JOE]:
Yeah, I would imagine that there’s so much you could do with a website to figure out what are the things that you really want to have it do would be really Important. When you have a website like that, you have kind of two populations, you have the people that are signing up for it that are the consultants and supervisors. And if you don’t have enough of those, then the audience doesn’t come to the website. But then if you have too many of those, but not people searching, then they get frustrated because they’re on this website but nobody’s searching. How did you figure that out, or how are you figuring that out, in regards to how to get enough supervisors and consultants and enough people searching for those supervisors and consultants?

[BRITTANY]:
Absolutely. That has absolutely been a big thought and a lot of time and attention has gone into that because it’s true. And it was one of my biggest fears and worries of like, so the website goes live and what comes first – the chicken or the egg, right? And so, truly, it has been a lot of giving of promo codes, a lot of consistency for people to see like, what’s the bang for your buck, and lots of the data that we’ve had on the back end being given out to the people. So, you know, for example, our first month that we had the website up, we had over 700 views on it. And so that was pretty cool to see, that something that was essentially a baby had a decent number of views, which made us feel confident that the material was good, that we were going somewhere, and that we could offer benefit to both sides. And that’s always been my biggest thing is I don’t want to just offer a benefit to one side of this because it’s so important for both sides to be engaged. So, there’s lots of promoting that’s being done to the different boards. So social work boards, psychology boards, counseling boards, LMFT boards, also the colleges and universities to try and make sure that we’re attracting people who can utilize supervision. And then there’s a lot of work being done on Facebook and Instagram to make sure that we’re attracting both sides of the equation to make sure that we have a balanced equation for the directory, it has absolutely been a huge piece of like, how do we do this? How do we get the audience that needs to see this balanced?

[JOE]:
Yeah, I know directory sites like Psychology Today or other ones, they’ll “verify” you and submit your license and all that. Do you monitor every single state’s supervision requirements, and then I mean, there’s anywhere from three to five different types of licenses within that for social workers, MFTs, psychologists, counselors, that just seems like that would be a ton of work to even try to keep up with or you can go on the other side and just say, you know what, that’s up to the individual supervisor to make sure they’re in compliance. Like, how did you think through that and what are you guys doing in regards to verifying supervisors?

[BRITTANY]:
Absolutely, yeah. So, how it works is that when somebody lists their listing, essentially, they’re required to put their state and their license number on it to make it easy to verify. We do not go through each one of those and verify them, but we do verify that everybody has their license on there and their license number on there. And then there’s some pretty in depth requirements for the person listing to sign saying that they acknowledge that they meet all requirements within their state to provide supervision, if that’s what they’re signed up for, which includes their license and supervision course, or hours, or whatever it looks like in their state because you’re right, it’s all different. And then they also are agreeing that they will pull down their listing and discontinue providing supervision if their license were to be sanctioned or revoked or anything like that, or if they’re not allowed to provide supervision anymore. And so, there’s some pretty hefty disclaimers in there, where it does put a high level of onus on the person to be honest, essentially. And then also for the people utilizing the website, we do always recommend that… it’s fairly easy to look up in most states, for you to be able to go to the board website and type in the license number. And typically, you can see right there pretty easily if somebody has an active license or not. And so, we do just recommend that if you’re gonna invest in a supervisor or a consultant, that you do just make sure that that they actively do have the license. But many of the licensing boards oftentimes do take care of that themselves as well. Not all of the states, but many of the states, in order to get a supervisor approved, the board actually approves that supervisor. And so, it’s kind of another level of protection for supervision, that the board oftentimes will approve those supervisors as well and ensure that person has an active Good Standing license.

[JOE]:
I want to kind of parse out looking for a good supervisor and when to do that, and kind of the steps that you’ve seen that people should consider. And then maybe we can say, specifically for consultants, what to look for, because we’ve kind of touched on it a little bit. So, for a supervisor, what are maybe the three to five things that when someone’s looking for a supervisor, they should really think through before they bring someone on as their supervisor?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, absolutely. So, beautiful question because in my experience, and many people’s experiences that I’ve talked to, supervision oftentimes comes when we work at an agency, or some sort of a practice where the supervisor is kind of given to us. And so, there’s not necessarily a match of niche, there’s not necessarily a good fit. And that’s beautiful. Many of us are super appreciative of the supervisors that are given to us, but it doesn’t make them a good supervisor. So for example, when I talked about my experience in kind of the child welfare therapy role, and how detrimental it might be to me to have a supervisor who specializes, let’s say in something like grief and loss, or elderly grief and loss, right? And so, it’s so important.. that person likely can help me, but it’s so important to find somebody in your niche if you have something specialized to learn from, because truly, that supervisor is setting the stage for you, and you’re setting the stage for you to go out and be on your own, and be comfortable and confident in providing therapy for those populations. So that’s why I’m so passionate about a good fit. Because we want people going out into the field, seeing clients, providing therapy on their own, feeling great and prepared, instead of kind of having like a generalist view of what therapy is.

[JOE]:
Yeah, it’s hard when you’re so early in your career to really even sometimes know your direction that you want to go in to find that supervisor. You just want to get through your hours.

[BRITTANY]:
You’re absolutely right. Yes, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And hopefully the therapist that you find is willing to kind of grow with you as well, right? So, most of us have somewhat of an idea of like, do I like to work with elderly population, or do I like to work with a young population? Or do I want to attempt to work with either of those? And to kind of help pull those apart. But also, I like to remind people that you don’t only have to have one supervisor. And so, if it’s feasible, if it’s something that you’re passionate about, to really consider if there’s a niche you want to explore, perhaps even sitting down with somebody who has that niche that provides supervision, might be pretty clarifying for you as well.

[JOE]:
What about hiring a consultant? When does that make sense? What are maybe a couple questions people should ask themselves before they hire someone to consult with clinically?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, absolutely. So, consultation is used quite a bit in our area, in the groups of therapists that I’ve worked with because we go to court a lot. And so that’s where consultation became extremely important for me is because we oftentimes get asked on the stand, is this of your opinion or did you consult with somebody else? And how empowering it is, and how confidence boosting it is to be able to say, you know, in fact, I meet bi weekly for consultation with a group or with an individual, and we did consult on this case, and it was a group recommendation that this is how I proceeded, as opposed to saying like, no, you know, I didn’t really talk to anybody about this, but I used my training and education to get to this decision or this path with this client, or this recommendation. And so, consultation has always been important for me because of that role. But consultation can be extremely useful for so many more roles than that. So, for example, one of the highest searched for consultation individuals is for rural social work. So, people who are providing therapy in – and in North Dakota, we have a lot of it – but in rural settings, so they literally don’t have somebody within many miles of them that they could go to. They’re not able to go to meetings throughout the week and see other therapists quite frequently. For some people, there’s not another therapist in that town. And so rural consultation has been extremely sought after, people who provide rural consultation has been extremely sought after as well.

But also, no matter where we are in our career, we just, we never can know it all. And so how important it is for people to be able to check us on our ethics, to be able to check us on hey, did you think about this approach with that client? And so, consultation can be so important for people in all different areas of therapy and in all different roles inside of therapy. And to be able to help us along a longer journey, including business consulting, which has also been very sought after – people wanting to go in private practice, but perhaps not knowing how to do it or people in private practice, not quite knowing what about these policies and procedures that I have? Or how do I do this billing? Or what are your ways of kind of tracking your statistics? So, consultation can be used for a variety of purposes. And I think the most important things to look for with consultation would be number one, to identify what do you need consultation the most on? Is it clinical consultation for cases? Is there a specific case that you’re really struggling with? Is it business consultation? And I would say that would be my first recommendation for how to kind of work through the directory, is identifying what sort of consultation you need. And then I think after that it’s really about preference, truly, does it need to be somebody in your state or your city? Does it need to be somebody who’s had X amount of years of experience? Does it need to be male or female? So, I think after that a lot of it is really personal preference.

[JOE]:
Oh, that’s awesome. And Brittany is going to share with us in a minute directly how to look some of that up on her website. If you are looking for a business consultant, we have four business consultants here at Practice of the Practice that can help you with marketing, growing a group practice, your big ideas, podcasts, all of that. You can apply over at practiceofthepractice.com/apply and I’ll talk with you about kind of which consultant would be the best fit based on your goals. Brittany, the last question that I always ask is, if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, I would want them to know how consultation and supervision services can either catapult your career and practice, or it can give you the foundation that is so important to be able to feel confident. And so whether it’s through our consultation and supervision directory, or another avenue that feels like a better fit for you, I would just strongly, strongly encourage you to advocate for yourself to find the right supervisor, the supervisor that’s a really good fit for you, and for your practice. And to also, while you’re in practice, to find the consultant that’s right for you, and that can encourage you and that you can lean on and that you can have those really tough, important conversations with.

[JOE]:
Awesome. And Brittany, if people want to connect with you and connect with your work, what’s the best way for them to find you?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, absolutely. So, you can head on over to www.consultationandsupervision.com. We also have a Facebook and an Instagram account. And if you just type in ‘consultation and supervision directory’ in either of those, you’ll find us.

[JOE]:
Oh, that’s so awesome. And you’re also doing a month free on the directory with promo code JOE. Thanks so much for giving that to our audience.

[BRITTANY]:
Absolutely. Thank you so much. I so appreciate you having me.

[JOE]:
Well, thanks so much for listening to this podcast today, I know that you are doing good work in the world. And thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to this. Hey, just a reminder that in just a little bit, on August 24th, Next Level Practice is opening. We haven’t opened this since… I want to say it was January, was our last opening, I’d have to look at the calendar to be sure. But we’re only opening it three times this year. And Next Level Practice is the best membership community for counselors. There’s a lot of them that are out there but ours is the best because it brings together all the things that you need for starting a private practice and getting to that six figures. So, if you are just at the beginning, all the way up till you’re at six figures, this is the membership program for you. It’s a little bit more expensive than the other ones, but it’s 99 bucks a month. And for that you get access to live events. Each month we do Ask the Experts, we do What’s Working? You get small groups that you’re put into, you get your accountability partner, we have over 30 eCourses that help you walk through starting and growing your private practice. As well, we give you resources that will help you continue to grow like a free logo, or access to TherapyNotes for six months for free. All sorts of things that we negotiate because we have that kind of buying power, because we have a larger group. So, if you want to join Next Level Practice on August 24th, you want to make sure that you’re getting all the emails about it. So, head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/invite, and you’ll get all of the access there. Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an awesome day.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music; we really like it. This podcast is designed to provide accurate, authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.