Summer 2025: 4-Part Training Series
TRAINING 1
Hard Topics & Value-Laden Issues in Clinical Supervision
3 NBCC SUPERVISION ETHICS CEs
Presented by Renée LaVail, LMFT, CST, ACS
July 25, 2025 | Delivered Online Via Zoom | 9am–12pm
Clinical supervisors often find themselves guiding supervisees through challenging new terrain. This essential training provides a direct look at the “hard topics” increasingly surfacing in the supervision room, impacting the supervisor, the supervisee’s practice, and their clients’ well-being. We’ll explore the complexities of the current political climate and the influence of therapists’ values and biases on ethically charged subjects. This session aims to help you effectively lead and facilitate essential conversations about these contemporary and often uncomfortable aspects of supervision.
Objectives:
- Participants will be able to identify and describe at least three “hard topics” commonly encountered in clinical supervision.
- Participants will be able to analyze the influence of the current political climate on the supervision process.
- Participants will be able to describe how therapists’ values and biases impact ethically charged subjects in supervision.
- Participants will demonstrate the ability to facilitate essential conversations around contemporary and uncomfortable dimensions of supervision.
TRAINING 2
Addressing Sex & Suicide In Supervision
3 NBCC SUPERVISION ETHICS CEs
Presented by Gayle Porter, LPCC & Renée LaVail, LMFT, CST, ACS
August 1, 2025 | Delivered Online Via Zoom | 9 am–12 pm
Week Two of our “Hard Topics” series zeroes in on two areas that can feel sensitive, demanding, and scary: suicide assessment and intervention, and topics related to sex and sexual health. This training will equip supervisors to support their team, protect their clients, and strengthen their practice by increasing confidence and effectiveness when guiding clinicians through these topics. We’ll cover ethical considerations for both areas, help you create a supportive and open consultation culture where clinicians feel safe discussing challenging cases, and provide practical tools for documentation, consultation, and clinical decision-making that reduce liability and enhance care. This session is designed to ensure supervisees are equipped to provide competent, compassionate, and, in some cases, life-saving care when critical issues emerge.
Objectives:
- Participants will be able to outline ethical considerations related to suicide assessment and intervention in supervision.
- Participants will be able to outline ethical considerations related to sex and sexual health in supervision.
- Participants will be able to describe practical tools for documentation, consultation, and clinical decision-making for
- supervising clinicians in cases involving suicide and sex-related topics.
TRAINING 3
Understanding & Evaluating Professional Dispositions in Clinical Supervision
3 NBCC SUPERVISION ETHICS CEs
Presented by Leandrea R. Romero-Lucero, Ph. D., LPCC, ACS, CSOTS
August 29, 2025 | Delivered Online Via Zoom | 9 am–12 pm
This training will provide a brief overview of the concepts of evaluation, remediation, and gatekeeping, and how supervisors can utilize these concepts to support supervisees who may be struggling with professional dispositions. Participants will apply the concepts to a case study and discuss strategies in a live discussion about how they implement these concepts into their supervisory practice.
Objectives:
- Participants will analyze the components of gatekeeping and remediation.
- Participants will be able to describe how the components of gatekeeping and remediation can be applied to addressing professional disposition concerns.
- Participants will apply these components to a case study and engage in a live discussion.
TRAINING 4
Supervising Paraprofessionals
3 NBCC SUPERVISION ETHICS CEs
Presented by Leandrea R. Romero-Lucero, Ph. D., LPCC, ACS, CSOTS
September 12, 2025 | Delivered Online Via Zoom | 9 am–12 pm
This training will provide a framework for those who provide supervision to paraprofessionals in the behavioral health field, as there is no current framework on how to effectively supervise paraprofessionals who may not abide by the same ethical guidelines as their clinical supervisor does. From the beginning of the supervisory relationship to maintaining consistent supervision will be discussed.
Objectives:
- Understand the foundational principles of initiating and maintaining productive supervisory relationships with paraprofessionals, recognizing the unique dynamics when ethical guidelines differ between supervisors and supervisees.
- Develop and apply a consistent supervision framework that addresses the absence of standardized guidelines, ensuring clarity in roles, responsibilities, and expectations throughout the supervisory process.
- Identify and manage potential ethical dilemmas and boundary issues that may arise due to differing ethical standards, fostering an environment of accountability and professional growth for paraprofessionals.
Clinical Supervision Academy has been approved by NBCC
as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7391.
Instructors
Leandrea R. Romero-Lucero, Ph. D., LPCC, ACS, CSOTS
Dr. Leandrea Romero-Lucero is an Associate Professor and Program Director for the 100% online CMHC program at Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, Lock Haven Campus. Dr. Romero-Lucero holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision and has been licensed in the state of New Mexico as a mental health counselor since 2008, holds the Approved Clinical Supervisor and Certified Sex Offender Treatment Specialist certifications and is an approved supervisor in New Mexico. Dr. Romero-Lucero’s research interests are grief and loss for kinship caregivers, supervisor training and development, and burn out amongst providers who work with adult and juvenile sex offenders.
Renée LaVail, LMFT, CST, ACS
Renée is the Founder and Executive Director of the Clinical Assessment Group, a behavioral health agency in New Mexico and Albuquerque Sex Therapy. Renée is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in New Mexico and has been practicing since 2008. Renée holds Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS) and American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) Certifications and is an approved clinical supervisor in New Mexico.
Renée spent 13 years of her clinical career working in community mental health, ending her tenure as a Clinical Director in December 2021 to expand her own organization. In 2024, she founded the Institute For Sexual Health Literacy, dedicated to educating the public and professionals on the critical importance of integrating sexual health knowledge into their work with the public. In 2025, Renée began working as an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Mexico, teaching Sexuality and Counseling and Professional Ethics to graduate students. Formerly a doctoral candidate in Behavioral Health Leadership (ABD), Renée elected to pause the completion of her final capstone research to focus on her group practice and associated research interests.
Gayle Porter, LPCC
Gayle os the Founder and Clinical Director of New Mexico Crisis Counseling, where she leads a team of clinicians dedicated to providing compassionate, evidence-based care to teens and adults. Gayle’s clinical practice specializes in suicide focused treatemt and short-term, solution-focused interventions for individuals experiencing distress following an acute crisis, including recent suicide attempt survivors. Her practice has a state wide contract with the State of New Mexico to provide crisis counseling and suicide focused care to Veterans and Service Members and their families. She has advanced training in the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention (CBT-SP), and has spent the past three years studying best practices in suicide-specific treatment.
A former law enforcement officer, Gayle transitioned to mental health work after receiving specialized training in Crisis Intervention. Gayle also served as a clinical supervisor for 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, where she supported clinicians responding to individuals in immediate mental health crises. Her personal and professional experiences deeply inform her commitment to ethical, relational, and culturally responsive care.
Since founding New Mexico Crisis Counseling in 2022, Gayle has developed a series of certified continuing education courses for mental health professionals. These trainings focus on enhancing clinician confidence in working with suicide risk and include topics such as relational suicide assessment, documentation and liability reduction, and clinical supervision.
Gayle currently serves as the President of the New Mexico Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), Secretary of the New Mexico Veterans Suicide Mortality Review Board, and a member of both the Governor’s and Mayor’s Challenges to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans, and their Families. She is also an Approved Clinical Supervisor and an alumna of the Clinical Assessment Group Supervision Academy.
Past Trainings
Legal & Ethical Issues In Clinical Supervision: Attorney Perspective
3 SUPERVISION CE’S
Legal & Ethical Issues In Clinical Supervision
4 SUPERVISION CE’S
Behavioral Health Leadership & The Clinical Supervisor
Technology & Telesupervision
4 CEs SUPERVISION ETHICS
Practicing Cultural Humility In Clinical Supervision
3 CULTURAL OR SUPERVISION CEs
Supervising Clinical Interns & New Clinicians
3 SUPERVISION ETHICS CEs