INDIAN ACADEMY OF PROFESSIONAL SUPERVISORS is an Association of accomplished mental health professionals who have established this organization with the laudable objective of evolving standards and enhancing competencies in professional supervision. These qualified professionals bring in a wealth of knowledge and experience to give the necessary impetus to the establishment of processes and practices for professional supervision in India. They also have plans to collaborate with other leading organizations with similar goals in the region that would embellish their experience and give tools that are not only contemporary but also practical for the community needing supervision in India.
In India, mental health, as a profession, has received attention and focus it deserves during the last decade or so. This is corroborated by the fact that there are a large number of qualified counsellors, who are supporting the general public in their mental health and well-being. The acceptance of therapeutic couselling by the public as a legitimate intervention to alleviate their suffering has borne fruits over the years. The stigma that used to be attached to visits such mental health professionals is also slowly fading away from public consciousness and has come to be accepted as a normal way of treating mental health-related issues.
While this is a welcome trend, this has also thrown up its own challenges as with any emerging field. The number of counsellors is on the rise. The profession is also not regulated. These factors may, perhaps, result in an unstructured growth leading to deficiency of services to the public. Besides the wellbeing, efficacy of the counsellor is also not being reviewed by another qualified and experienced counsellor exacerbating the situation further. Hence one of the aims of this Association is to establish a norm that Professional supervision must be an integral part of any clinical practice. Professional supervision is in its nascent stages in India and establishing such standards would go a long way to ease the potential shortcomings enumerated above.
Professional supervision also encompasses other supervisions that are part of any organization – be it in an IT Industry or a manufacturing industry or any other corporate entity for that matter. While supervisory training has long been established in these industries, there is still lot of scope for improvement, incorporating modern theories and practices that are well established in other corresponding fields of study and in regions adjoining India. The primary objective of the academy, therefore, is to endeavour to consolidate such practices, adopt them, customise them and create frameworks to meet the local needs of Indian organization and establish standards that could well become the norm for supervision all over India.
- Offer a platform for senior practicing mental health Professionals across India to get trained with the academy as a Professional supervisor duly certified by the academy.
- Offer a platform for such trained Professional supervisors to interact and continue to enhance their skills through continuous supervision on an ongoing basis.
- Formulate norms and regulations for continuity of the certification as a Professional supervisor.
- Collaborate with similar international associations like Australian Counseling Association for conducting supervisory training courses adapting their course curriculum which is followed in many of the Asia Pacific Rim Countries, after entering into a formal agreement with them.
- Issue certificates to such trainees jointly with collaborators to create a pool of trained Professional supervisors.
- Adapt internationally accepted and recognized best practices in Professional supervision.
Dr. Vasuki Mathivanan ( Founder/President ) Mobile: 91-98407 32055 – Email: iapsupervisors@gmail.com
Dr.Sumathi Narayanan ( Secretary ) Mobile: 91-9841014626 – Email: iapsupervisors@gmail.com