Issue link: http://ncumarketing.uberflip.com/i/1296238
N O RT H C E N T R A L U N I V E R S I T Y: N C U M F T S U P E RV I S O R C O R N E R 8 gardening. Before COVID-19, my hobby was often going out with friends. I have a series of friends that take care of different needs of mine. What do you enjoy most about supervising? I love honing new, fresh minds; people who are willing to learn new things. I've always gotten a lot out of supervising and, for the most part, it's been a labor of love. I do a lot more for them than I think they do for me, but I like it. I get a lot out of teaching people things and it's a little bit of socializing. I get to know somebody else who's learning and that gives me the opportunity to dialogue with them. It brings in a freshness to me, too. They're bringing in new things and research. They remind me to stay fresh and on top of things because they're in school, doing their work and they're bringing in their ideas. I love helping people and I've always loved the student atmosphere. If I could afford it, I would just stay in school forever. It's a way to get that aspect of being in school again, only as teacher. How have you been incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into your supervision? I've always kept that at the forefront of my mind. I love bringing in race and culture as a part of training and treatment because it's a part of people's lives. In St. Louis, we are in a melting pot of racial injustice and difficulties. I bring it up pretty directly. When the George Floyd situation occurred, I directly asked my African American clients "What's going on for you? How are you working through this? This wasn't okay." Personally, I take the stance of, "I don't know everything, but I am always willing to learn and grow." I've been incorporating it a lot in my podcast, www. aboutsexpodcast.com, where I'm just interviewing people about Black Lives Matter and learning from different perspectives about what people are going through and what changes people want to see. That's been really helpful because I realized that even I struggle to have the cultural "competency" conversation. I wanted to make sure that I was developing myself in that area, too. With supervisees, it's the same thing. I always try to ask them, "What role do you think race is playing?" I tell them to address it directly and don't assume that you know everything about it. Be willing to own the "I don't know everything," and know there are ways that even I can be involved in microaggressions unintentionally. I just call it out. I'd say I had more of those conversations with my African American interns. I think it depends on the intern's race as well, as far as how much of that shows up in the office and how much it doesn't. It's important for me to stay on top of what my biases are and how I am going to address them in very direct ways so that I'm being the most helpful for my clients. There's been a lot of cool experiences in the past where I've just directly addressed race, and those were contextual elements to what was going on in the situation. Everybody has a different experience even within races, so I've always liked the sense of everybody has their own culture, but there are still aspects of them within the greater culture. You have to ask people about what their experience is. Sometimes I might throw something out there like, "Here's what's going on" or "Here's what some people struggle with. Are you close or not close to that?" People still have the wiggle room to agree, disagree, or qualify their experience. I either call the elephant out or put out an extreme that they can connect with or not, but they have a choice. Both are really great strategies for bringing people out of their shells. Everything I do is addressing taboo topics. I've learned a few strategies. I'm not perfect at it. That's the other thing I want to teach my supervisees: that you can kind of fumble your way through things. Actually, one of my favorite phrases is "awkwardly lean in." Be awkward; put out that you're awkward. The more that you allow yourself the freedom to be awkward and uncomfortable, the easier it is to maneuver in all spaces. You just get comfortable with the uncomfortable.