Competency Checklists in Behavioral Healthcare

A job description is a requirement of all behavioral health organizations. Laid out with duties, responsibilities, and reporting mechanisms, the new employee has an understanding of their position. But how many organizations also have a competency checklist for each position? 

The competency checklist is a worksheet with duties an employee performs to show they understand the position’s necessities. Most accreditation organizations require it as part of their survey process, yet behavioral health organizations do not. Although new employees are trained, how does a supervisor measure an employee’s readiness in their position?

Suppose your organization employs Master’s level therapists. You want to measure their proficiency in their first 90 days. First, you put down their job duties onto the list. Then you decide how to measure whether the employee demonstrates this skill. For example, if an employee must handle a crisis with a client when they express suicidal or homicidal thoughts. The employee may not have a client currently with a crisis and can’t show their skills in that manner. But by the supervisor reviewing with the employee company protocols on crisis management, the employee demonstrates this knowledge.

Then the supervisor can role-play a crisis with them portraying the client while the new employee shows how they would handle the emergency. These steps make the supervisor confident with the employee’s responses. Of course, because the therapist is under the supervisor’s purview, the therapist would still consult with the supervisor during the crisis. But the supervisor can document their beginning level of expertise.

The next steps are to expand beyond job duties. Beyond the job description, what other skills are required to demonstrate a competent therapist? Documentation, cultural competency, dealing with client resistance and countertransference, and the use of therapeutic interventions are some other tasks to list on the competency checklist. 

Within the first 90 days, the supervisor should have an idea if the new employee can perform the duties the company requires of a therapist. And have documentation to prove it. And if the employee falls behind during their continued employment, the checklist can be revisited with retraining or additional skills to improve their performance.

Praxes provides behavioral health consulting to organizations in areas of accreditation and human resources. For more information, please contact us.