Being an Internship Supervisor: The Importance of Taking Breaks

It is official. It is Snow Day #4 for my students, and since the roads are icy, I am at home and plan on staying here. I am scared of ice and have spent too many hours in ditches and after accidents to risk leaving my home. I am still trying to quash the feelings of guilt that occur when I do not go in on these types of days, and I know that I could use the time off later, but I am still here at home. Safety is more important than time off.

Anyway, this entire situation is made a bit easier because I do not have an intern right now. All I have to do is navigate my own life situation rather than that of an intern who needs clinical hours, and that fact is helpful today. With the absence of an intern in my program, there are other things that are a bit more simple now.

I am a proponent of taking breaks from being an internship supervisor on a regular basis. I do not actively recruit interns to my open positions because I need breaks from being mentor and coach. I just need to be therapist for a bit of time.

For me, not having an intern gives me some time to evaluate my program and to figure out what is needed to move the next round of interns from students to professionals. Since I have a day off from work today, I am going to work a bit on resources for these students - and for you, too!

I already have some resources available for internship supervisors on my TPT store. I want to make more and share the information and files that I find helpful these days. I am investigating a bunch of ways to share resources with others, and I have lots of things to disseminate. I am making bundles of resources so my fellow music therapists can find things quickly and easily.

That's about all I have to talk about today. Take breaks from being an internship supervisor when you need them. I know that my breaks are usually coordinated around applicants, but there have been times when I have purposefully not taken interns during my 26 years. I find that breaks from supervising are essential for my health as a supervisor. Does that make sense?

In this next break from interns, I am going to revamp my explanations for the assignments that I have. It is time to evaluate the types of learners that are out there in the world and figure out how to teach them what I think they need to know about the expectations of my role in the professional world. Anyway, time to get going...

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