Paying for Mentorship & Supervision

For many behavior analysts working outside of traditional clinical roles, the question is not whether supervision is valuable, it is whether it exists in a form that meaningfully supports the work they are or want to be doing.

As behavior analysis continues to expand into organizational systems, leadership, consulting, and non-clinical work, professionals are increasingly applying behavioral science in contexts that fall outside the supervision structures most people are trained within. While OBM and non-clinical practice are well-established within the literature and academia, access to supervision in these areas is scarce.

In non-clinical roles, behavior analysts almost always receive job-specific supervision from managers, team leads, or organizational leadership. This supervision is essential for accountability, performance, and organizational alignment. However, this type of supervision often does not provide structured support for behavior-analytic decision-making, technical skill development, or the translation of behavioral principles into new domains.

Similarly, academic programs offer strong conceptual training and advising, but faculty expertise, scope, role expectations, and time constraints can limit the availability of applied OBM or non-clinical supervision once students move into fieldwork, internships, or early-career roles.

The result is not a lack of supervision or a failure of individuals to “find supervision.” It is a structural mismatch between how the field has traditionally supported fieldwork experience and the support and experience needed to sustain modern, non-clinical behavior-analytic practice. Addressing this mismatch requires expanding how we think about supervision, and it necessitates supplementing current systems with specialized, applied support.

The Scarcity of OBM & Non-Clinical Supervision

Outside of universities and formal training programs, access to OBM and non-clinical supervision is limited; not because supervision disappears, but because the type of supervision needed changes.

Going into fields that are not primarily behavior-analytic in nature (marketing, project management, etc.), we are often working with and for leaders and team members who do not have training in behavior analysis or OBM. In other cases, they may have the expertise but not the time or role flexibility to provide structured, competency-based mentorship alongside job responsibilities. As a result, behavior analysts are often left to generalize their training independently, without feedback or guidance aligned with the science in which they were trained.

This is where supplemental OBM and non-clinical supervision becomes critical.

Supervision as Supplemental Skill-Building

The supervision we are discussing is not a replacement for managerial oversight, faculty advising, or job-based supervision. It is supplemental by design.

High-quality OBM and non-clinical supervision focuses on building technical fluency, professional judgment, and translational skills that extend beyond the immediate demands of a role. It provides a structured space to connect behavior-analytic principles to new fields, systems, and professional contexts. This work often falls outside the scope of what organizations or academic programs can reasonably provide.

For individuals interested in applying their behavior-analytic training to new areas such as project management, marketing, operations, or leadership, this distinction is especially important. Traditional project managers, for example, may be highly skilled in timelines, deliverables, and stakeholder coordination. However, for individuals interested in entering project management from a behavior-analytic background, supplemental supervision provides the opportunity to learn the field as it is practiced while also receiving support in translating the science of behavior into project systems.

Supporting Universities Through Specialized Supervision

Universities face similar constraints. Many faculty members are experts in research, teaching, or clinical practice, but fewer have direct experience supervising OBM or non-clinical fieldwork.

In these cases, supplemental supervisors can serve as adjuncts or site supervisors, expanding a program’s capacity without replacing its academic foundation. This model allows universities to offer broader fieldwork opportunities, support diverse career pathways, and ensure students receive supervision aligned with their applied area of interest without requiring every faculty member to maintain expertise across all areas of practice.

Supporting Organizations Offering Applied Experiences

Private companies increasingly want to offer internships, fellowships, or early-career roles to graduate students and newly credentialed professionals. These opportunities can be mutually beneficial, but they come with practical limitations.

Organizations are typically focused on business outcomes, timelines, and role-specific performance. They may not have the time, infrastructure, or technical background to provide supplemental behavior-analytic training beyond what the job itself requires. As a result, learning opportunities related to systems analysis, ethical applications, or advanced skill development can be unintentionally sidelined.

Supplemental supervision allows organizations to offer allied experience while ensuring participants receive structured mentorship focused on professional growth, technical skill-building, and ethical practice. This support benefits both the individuals and the organization by strengthening the quality, clarity, and sustainability of the work being done.

Expanding What Supervision Can Support

For individuals, universities, and organizations alike, supplemental OBM and non-clinical supervision functions as connective tissue. It links behavior-analytic training and research to real-world applications, supports professionals as they move to new domains, and ensures that growth is intentional, rather than improvised.

This model recognizes that no single supervisor, employer, or faculty member can meet every developmental need. Instead, it treats supervision as a collaborative, layered process that adapts to the complexity of expanding behavior-analytic interests.

Paid supervision in these contexts exists not because others are failing to supervise, but because the scope of work has expanded beyond what traditional structures were designed to support. When supervision is intentionally positioned as supplemental and skill-focused, it becomes a powerful tool for professional development rather than a workaround.