CTC Diploma in Creative Supervision 2025
Starting 29th March 2025
Creative Supervision includes the use of action methods and creative approaches in the supervision of therapists and other professionals involved in direct work with clients of all ages, utilising a variety of theoretical frameworks, and in a variety of circumstances. These strategies also prove useful in the mentoring and consultative roles that are part and parcel of many professional lives. This course focuses on utilising new and innovative approaches utilising the creative arts, lateral thinking, and playful activities in the supervision process. An aim is to facilitate supervisors to connect more fully with supervisees, and facilitate them in fully exploring and finding solutions to dilemmas in client work and in the management of clinical teams. There is a focus on learning to match supervision style and process to supervisee needs, ensuring that the continuum of needs of those with varying degrees of experience are responded to in an integrated manner. Central to this is the use of informed intuition to hypothesise, blended with advanced skills in understanding intrapersonal and interpersonal processes, and knowing when and how to apply diverse approaches.
This course is suitable to therapists adopting a variety of approaches in their work, regardless of the specific core training that they have undertaken. It is an experiential training with a substantial theoretical component and equips trainees to undertake the multiple roles of the supervisor. The core framework utilised in the course is humanistic and integrative. Our emphasis on creative approaches makes it suitable for those supervising practitioners who work in a wide variety of settings, with a broad spectrum of clients. Our main model for supervision is that developed by Hawkins and Shohet; the Seven Eyed Supervision Model described in their ground-breaking book ‘Supervision in the Helping Professions’. “The one really powerful book in this area, a book that fundamentally changed the way in which people think about supervision and training.” according to Professor John McLeod. There are also opportunities to review other relevant theoretical approaches.
Practice with supervisees is required during the course. Some of this work will be supervised within the course structure to maximise learning. In addition, participants are required to engage in external supervision on supervision and submit a supervisors’ report.
Yet again, we are delighted to be able to deliver this training with input from international experts in the field: Joan Wilmot, Karen Jesnick and Maggie Fearn are all scheduled to teach modules. Majella Ryan is the course leader she is directly involved in teaching, assessment and supervision roles. Michelle Fahy and Emer McDonagh also have teaching input within the training. There is also a one day conference covering ‘Legal Issues’ included in the course. This Intensive training day is specifically designed to cover what you need to know about the legal system and the delicate legal issues involved in therapeutic work with clients of all ages and is delivered by Seamus Clarke BL, a barrister with particular expertise in the field.
Course Trainers:
Majella Ryan M.I.A.C.P is course leader on our Diploma in Creative Supervision. Majella is a very experienced child, adolescent and adult psychotherapist and utilises play and creative approaches in her work with clients of all ages. She trained originally in Biodynamic and Integrative Psychotherapy, she has an MA in Creative Psychotherapy and a Diploma in Creative Supervision. She has worked in a variety of settings including private practice, a family therapy service and in CARI for over 20 years. She now works as a student counsellor at TUS Limerick and and also maintains her private practice as a supervisor. Majella is a supervisor for play therapists, creative arts therapists, and child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapists.
Joan Wilmot was a co-founder of the Centre for Supervision and Team Development along with Robin Shohet, Peter Hawkins and Judy Ryde in 1979 and works as a trainer, supervisor, psychotherapist and mediator. Her particular interest is in working with systems and using organisational and family constellations work. She has been running supervision trainings and working with individuals, teams, and the voluntary sector for over 50 years. Her passion is in enabling people to find the work they love and love the work they do. She is an active member of Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Seven Directions both pf whom engage with the messy and glorious nature of human life, love and relationship.
Joan delivers the May 2025 (3-day) module, built round the 7 modes of supervision described first in Supervision in the Helping Professions (Hawkins and Shohet OUPress 4th edition 2012), and now in their latest book In Love with Supervision: Creating Transformative Conversations. R. Shohet and J. Shohet described as ‘much more than a manual, this book embodies the heart, soul, spirit and values of their training courses – a golden treasury of insight, wisdom and practical techniques. Joan leads the group through each mode and provides opportunities to practice in triads – supervisor, supervisee and observer. She also includes exercises designed to integrate the modes into one’s own practice. Joan has been teaching this model, with Robin Shohet, for over 45 years at the Centre for Supervision and Team Development (CSTD)
Karen Jesnick Maginn started out as a youth worker and informal educator before retraining as a Play Therapist in 2003. She has over 20 years’ experience of working therapeutically with children and their families. This includes spending a decade working across a Local Authority and CAMHS with children in the care system before becoming an Independent Play Therapist, Trainer and Clinical Supervisor. She was an internal Clinical Supervisor on the MA Play Therapy Programme at the University of Roehampton, London for 10 years and continues to supervise both students and qualified Play Therapists. She enjoys finding playful & creative ways to enhance the supervision experience for both the supervisor and supervisee.
Karen will deliver the July 2025 module and will explore how creativity can provide quick and powerful insights into clinical work that can circumnavigate our use of words as well as develop resilience in the therapist. She will show how using figures, props, cards, role play, improvisation and imagery can enable the supervisee to examine their clinical approaches, explore meaning for the client and develop hypotheses. Furthermore, she will examine how creativity has wider and deeper applications as it allows the supervisee to discharge powerful feelings, develop their use of self in the work and allow themselves to become vulnerable as a means for developing greater professional awareness.
Maggie Fearn MA DATP; BAPT: MA Psychotherapy and Play Therapy has been a play practitioner for more than 30 years, gaining her first MA (Developmental and Therapeutic Play) at Swansea University in 2009, and she has been a Forest School practitioner since 2001. Maggie is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, play therapist, supervisor and lecturer. Maggie retired as a senior lecturer in the University of South Wales in 2022, where she taught on the MSc Play Therapy. She is currently Assistant Director of Academic Affairs at the Children’s Therapy Centre. She also continues her work as a Senior Practitioner with The Windfall Centre providing therapeutic services for children and their families in South and West Wales. Maggie also continues to provide clinical supervision for therapists. She has many published articles and book chapters, and has a particular interest in neurobiology, movement and nature-based play therapy. Maggie is also a highly experienced lecturer and international presenter.
Emer McDonagh (MIAPTP, SIAPTP, MIAHIP, MICP, ECIP) is the Assistant MA Course Leader and Supervision Co-Ordinator here at CTC. She holds an MA in Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy and Play Therapy and a BA (HONS) in Applied Social Studies in Social Care. Emer has also completed training as a clinical supervisor, EMDR training, Intensive Filial Therapy Training, Compassionate Inquiry and mindfulness training. Emer is certified as an integrative psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor with the European Association for Integrative Psychotherapy. She is also fully accredited with the Irish Association for Play Therapy and Psychotherapy. Emer is a core trainer on our MA and she also designs and delivers a vast array of CPD training courses for us. In addition, she is supervision co-ordinator here at CTC. Emer has extensive experience supervising both trainee and fully qualified therapists. Emer will facilitate a training day exploring supervising student therapists.
Michelle Fahy (MA, MIACP; MEAIP) has worked as a group process facilitator for CTC for over eight years and also serves as a part-time trainer, wellbeing coordinator, and equality & diversity officer. She is an experienced biodynamic and creative psychotherapist, group process facilitator, integrative clinical supervisor, and personal leadership & executive coach. Michelle holds an MA in psychotherapy, an honours B.A. degree, a diploma in Montessori, and a higher diploma in education. She has also undertaken extensive training in areas such as couples therapy, gender and sexual diversities, neurodiversity, and group process facilitation among many other trainings in both Ireland and abroad. With over 25 years of experience facilitating groups, Michelle has worked across a broad range of settings, including development groups, outreach programs, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and positive mental health promotion. She has engaged with individuals at all stages of life, from children and adolescents to adults, couples, families, and groups, both in private practice and within community, corporate, and training sectors. Additionally, she has worked across all levels of education, from Montessori to third level. Michelle strongly advocates for experiential and creative methodologies as fundamental to fostering empowerment, inclusivity and body-mind harmony.
Seamus Clarke SC, BCL (NUI), BCL (Oxon), Senior Counsel, has a Bachelor Degree of Civil Law (International) from University College Dublin and De Paul University, Chicago. He has a Masters in European and Comparative Law from the University of Oxford and holds a Barrister-at-Law Degree from the Honourable Society of Kings Inns Dublin. He has a general practice at the bar specialising in the areas of Commercial Law, Employment Law and Criminal Law. He lectures in a number of Institutions in EU Law, IT law and Criminal Law and is an Adjunct Professor in International Intellectual Property Law for the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Seamus has given courses to a variety of groups including many Counsellors & Medico-Legal Professionals.
Suitable Applicants
This course is designed as an advanced experiential and skills based training for:
- Psychotherapists, play therapists, creative arts therapists, and psychologists with considerable experience (usually with at least 5 years post-qualifying experience) and who are ready to, or have started to, provide supervision.
- Health care and helping professionals holding supervisory responsibilities
- Teachers, carers, community workers who wish to develop their supervision skills
- Others with a supervisory role.
Suitable psychotherapist candidates will usually have a busy practice, generally working with 8 or more clients each week. These clients may be adults or children or a combination of both.
Course Duration: To facilitate trainees maintaining their work, we run the course over a number of one – three-day modules throughout the year rather than having weekly or monthly sessions. The 2025 course dates are, 29th March (Limerick), 5th April 2025 or 11th April 2026 (Legal Conference Online), 9th –11th May (Limerick), 8th June (Online), 11th – 13th July (Limerick), 6th & 7th September (Ballymore), Mon 13th Oct (Limerick), 6th December (Ballymore) and 10th & 11th Jan 2026 (Limerick). The course runs for the full day (10– 5.30pm) on all scheduled dates, except for Day 3 of Joan Wimot’s module which ends at 2:30pm. 100 tutor student contact hours are involved in the course. The last date of the course is 11th January 2026 – this is the date for final submissions of logs and reports.
Assignments & Assessment: Assessment includes both written and practical components with self, peer and trainer input. The focus is on ensuring that graduates will have a toolkit of skills, a solid theoretical framework, and will be adept at responding to the needs of individual, or groups of, supervisees with a range of levels of expertise, utilising a variety of therapeutic approaches across the spectrum of client groups.
Each participant will work with supervisees during the course and will write a 2000 word supervision case review about the experience of supervising one of these supervisees, including details of what made it ‘creative’ supervision. Another written assignments is in relation to managing an ethical or clinical decision making dilemma. The external supervisor will be required to submit a report.
All students must engage in supervised supervision practice during the course. The External Supervisors Report and associated logs must be submitted by 11th January 2026 at the very latest.
The Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy (IAHIP), and the Irish Association for Play Therapy and Psychotherapy (IAPTP) require students to complete supervised supervision practice during the course, this course meets those requirements. Students are advised that IACP mainly only accredit supervisors who have completed an IACP recognised supervision course and that CTC is not applying for this recognition.
Trainee supervisors should engage in external supervision (with a suitable supervisor who is not directly involved with the training course in any way) in the ratio of one hour supervision to four hours of supervision practice. The external supervisor concerned may also supervise your client work. CTC will require them to submit a supervisor report (template in the course handbook) attesting to both the quantity and the quality of your work in respect of at least 25 hours of external supervision practice. The External Supervisor Report is due by 11th January 2026.
Venue: The venues for the on-site training days are 1. CTC Limerick – Children’s Therapy Centre, Stewart House, Lonsdale Road, National Technology Park, Plassey, Co. Limerick V94 KN70
and 2. CTC Ballymore – Children’s Therapy Centre, Slievenagorta, Ballymore, Co Westmeath, N91 CC65
Fees: The course fee is €3000. A non-refundable deposit of €500 is payable on acceptance of a place. The remainder becomes due before the first module. However, individual payment plan options are available by clicking here. The fee includes the course attendance, all handouts, internal group supervision on supervision, assessment, and the Legal Conference. Costs for external supervision on supervision are negotiated directly with the supervisor involved.
Application Process: Please complete the application form (editable PDF file) and email it to ctcsiobhan@gmail.com. Please attach a copy of your CV, copies of your relevant certificates and a copy of your photo ID to the email. Please send one email with all relevant documents attached. Applications will be processed, and applicants will be contacted via email. All successful applicants will have to get two references on the CTC template, this will be sent to applicants when an offer if a place is made.
Children’s Therapy Centre, Stewart House, Lonsdale Road, National Technology Park,
Plassey, Co. Limerick, V94 KN70, Ireland
Application Form(Please click here)
Payment plans(Please click here)
Further Details and information on this and other courses from: ctccourseinfo@gmail.com www.childrenstherapycentre.ie
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/CTC-facebook
Association for Play Therapy (APT) Approved Provider 11-294
