Building and Sustaining Meaningful and Effective Relationships as a Supervisor and Mentor

A guide to developing supervisory and mentoring skills for leadership in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. Intended for the BACB-mandated course for BACB certification. In this text, Linda LeBlanc, Tyra Sellers, and Shahla Ala’i explore both entry-level and advanced topics in supervision. The book focuses on the importance of strong relationships and teaching higher-order skills throughout any supervisory endeavor. The authors provide a conceptually sound set of supervision practices that will guide the actions of those who aspire to become better supervisors or mentors at any point in their careers. The book focuses on including and celebrating people from diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender identity). Throughout the text, the strategy of self-reflection is used to guide readers in developing plans for their professional growth and for fostering the growth of others. Those who are being supervised during their graduate training and thus preparing to supervise others may develop a greater understanding of their ongoing supervision experience to help them decide which aspects of these experiences they want to integrate into their future professional selves and which parts they want to discard. Those who are already supervising, and mentoring others may benefit from reflection on the strategies that they have been using and how those actions were shaped by their prior experiences. Seasoned supervisors may gain additional perspective or new ideas for supervision and re-anchor their supervisory practices to their ultimate goals of professional growth and contribution to the field.