Abstract
Background: In recent years there has been a marked increase in recognition of the value of clinical psychologists in the National Health Service (NHS). Unlike other health professions clinical psychologists require specialist supervision to maintain the quality of their work and to ensure they maintain a solid evidence based practice throughout their career. The government paper ‘New Ways of Working’ emphasizes the importance of the supervisory role in this discipline; however, in reality there appear to be few opportunities and unclear guidelines for psychologists in their journey to becoming supervisors. Objective: This project aims to explore what has been offered to 3rd year trainees on the University of Surrey Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology, with a view to provide useful recommendations to academic staff. Design: A qualitative design was adopted, using a focus group to explore the perspectives of trainee clinical psychologists. Participants: Six, 3rd year trainee clinical psychologists were invited to take part in a focus group. Analysis: The data was analysed using qualitative methods to capture group experiences in an informal setting. A group approach was applied to analyse the data following strict guidelines to ensure credibility of the findings. Results: Two broad themes emerged namely ‘learning from placement’ and ‘lack of formal training’ which highlighted a shared view that firstly, most trainees at present only obtain experiential skills on supervising during their placements and secondly they receive very little formal teaching at the university. Conclusions: It was concluded that doctoral training in clinical psychology may need to reconsider ways of integrating these skills more formally in order to prepare trainees to confront this role with confidence.