MBCL Supervision

As long as no formal guidelines have been formulated internationally, the Good Practice Guidelines for Supervisors of Mindfulness-Based Teachers formulated by BAMBA, the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches, serve as guidelines for MBCL Supervisors.

Click here for the BAMBA Good Practice Guidelines.

As long as no formal guidelines have been formulated internationally, the Good Pracice Guidelines for Teaching Mindfulness-Based Courses formulated by BAMBA, the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches, can serve as guidelines.

Click here for the BAMBA Good Practice Guidelines.

Supervisees can bring in themes themselves, depending on their learning needs. The six competence domains as described in the MBI-TAC by Crane et al. (2012) are fully applicable to MBCL and can be a valuable resource when considering areas for development.

Providing and organising the MBCL programme to the target group at an appropriate pace.

Relational skills.

Embodiment of mindfulness and compassion (embodiment).

Guiding MBCL practices.

Communicating MBCL themes through interactive inquiry (mindful dialogue) and didactic teaching.

Facilitating a safe atmosphere and constructive learning environment (holding).

The full version of MBI-TAC and last updates can be found here.

The supervisor may ask the supervisee to send an e-mail with specific questions and/or themes for explorations no later than 2-3 days before a scheduled supervision session. At the second and third session, supervisees can also be asked to send a short reflection report with insights from the previous conversation and how they worked with this during the course.

No formal assessment takes place because supervisees have already followed a certification process for mindfulness teaching. Certified mindfulness teachers are themselves considered capable of assessing when they can add additional mindfulness-based interventions to their repertoire. However, the supervisor can make recommendations based on the impression of a supervisee during the MBCL supervision process.

When in doubt about the competencies of a supervisee, the supervisor will discuss this with the supervisee. The supervisor can then recommend additional training, practice and/or supervision. In consultation with the supervisee, the supervisor can also seek advice from Frits Koster or Erik van den Brink or other senior MBCL tutors.

No fixed rate is prescribed as in different countries there are considerable differences regarding what is common and reasonable. Supervisors will orientate themselves towards the rates recommended by their national mindfulness teachers associations. Contracting and invoicing procedures are to be discussed individually with the supervisor.

After the successful completion of the MBCL certification course accompanied by at least three one-hour of supervision sessions, the supervisor will send an email to the responsible coordinator Jana Willms (info@achtsamkeit-willms.de) and in cc to the supervisee, stating that the supervisee is recommended for inclusion in the International Register for certified MBCL teachers.

The supervisee then has to send a corresponding email to the responsible coordinator Jana Willms (info@achtsamkeit-willms.de) asking for inclusion in the international register and submitting a contact option (website, email or pdf file) to be published in the register. A copy of a document or a link to a recognised mindfulness institute stating the supervisee is certified to teach MBSR, MBCT or another recognized Mindfulness-Based Programme, as well as a copy of the certificate of participation in the MBCL Teacher Training must be attached.