If you’re a counsellor building a private practice — whether you’re just starting out or a few years in — finding the right clinical supervisor matters. This month I’m formally opening up a new side of my work at Sunny Coast Counselling: individual and group clinical supervision for counsellors, delivered in person here on the Sunshine Coast, and online by Zoom or Teams for practitioners across Australia and New Zealand.
In this post I want to introduce myself, explain the STEP-UP model I use to structure supervision, and talk about why it might be a good fit if you’re building your own practice.
A bit about me
I’m John Belchamber, Managing Counsellor at Sunny Coast Counselling. I’m a member of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) and its College of Supervisors, and my own clinical work draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Solutions Focused and Person-Centred Therapy amongst others.
I have a Master of Counselling and alongside that clinical background, I hold a Postgraduate Diploma in Business & Financial Management and DISC, REACH and SPQ certifications, and have spent 28 years working in training, coaching and consulting. That combination — clinical depth plus business and organisational experience — shapes how I approach supervision, and it’s the reason the STEP-UP model has a dedicated focus on the business of running a practice, not just the clinical work itself.
Individual and group supervision, your way
Supervision is available one-to-one or in small groups, whichever suits your practice and your location:
- Face-to-face, at my practice at Golden Beach on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Online, via Zoom or Teams, for counsellors anywhere in Australia or New Zealand
My focus is on counsellors who are starting out in private practice or already building one — supervision that supports both your clinical development and the practical realities of running a practice.
The STEP-UP model of supervision
STEP-UP is the framework I use to structure our supervision sessions. It covers six areas, and while every session won’t touch on all six, together they give supervision a consistent, whole-of-practice shape:
- SUPPORT — supportive questioning, challenge, encouragement and validation, so you have a genuine sounding board, not just an assessor.
- TRACK — reviewing your counselling methods, quality assurance with clients, risk identification, referrals and how you’re progressing against the ACA Code of Conduct.
- EDUCATE — setting goals for future sessions, professional development, modelling, and working through your duty of care and ethical and legal responsibilities.
- PERFORMANCE — your career goals, peer connection, and tracking progress against the goals we set.
- U (You) — SELF-CARE — sleep, nutrition, exercise, relaxation, family and social time, and work relationships: the sustainability side of practising as a counsellor.
- PRACTICE — the business side: insurance, policies and procedures, record keeping, time management, networking, and identifying gaps in your practice — including add-on services like EAP work and NDIS.
Why the PRACTICE domain matters if you’re building a private practice
Most supervision I’ve seen focuses squarely on clinical technique and case discussion, and that’s essential — it’s most of what SUPPORT, TRACK and EDUCATE cover in STEP-UP. But if you’re building or running your own practice, the business questions are just as real: how to set your fees, whether to take on EAP or NDIS work, how to manage your time and paperwork, and where to find referral networks and peer connection.
The PRACTICE domain in STEP-UP gives that side of things a proper place in supervision, drawing on my own background in business management alongside my clinical training. If you’re a sole practitioner without a team around you, that’s often exactly where an outside, experienced perspective helps most.
Getting started
If you’d like to talk about individual or group supervision — whether you’re newly registered, working towards your hours, or established but looking for a new supervisor — get in touch and we’ll have a conversation about what you need and whether STEP-UP supervision is the right fit. I review every enquiry personally before we go ahead.
You can reach me at john@sunnycoastcounselling.com.au, or fill in the supervision enquiry form below.