More Than a Supervisor: How Mentorship Shapes Clinical Decision Making and Career Growth in ABA with Dr. Becky Eldridge

New BCBAs often enter the field with confidence built from years of coursework and fieldwork, only to discover that the job looks very different once they are on their own. The clinical decisions feel harder. The systems feel unfamiliar. And supervision, as they have known it, starts to look like something that was preparing them for a credential rather than a career.

In a recent episode of In the Field: The ABA Podcast, I sat down with Dr. Becky Eldridge, Ph.D., BCBA-D, to unpack what mentorship actually is, how it differs from supervision, and why it may be the missing piece for new behavior analysts trying to find their footing.

Supervision and Mentorship: Two Different Roles

Drawing from the book Building and Sustaining Meaningful and Effective Relationships as a Supervisor and Mentor by Dr. Linda LeBlanc, Dr. Tyra Sellers, and Dr. Shahla Ala'i Rosales, Dr. Eldridge distinguishes between two roles that are often conflated.

A supervisor focuses on performance outcomes that typically serve the organization: treatment plans being submitted on time, making sure billable hours are met, and client progress toward goals. A mentor, by contrast, supports goals the mentee chooses for themselves. Rather than managing performance on behalf of an employer, a mentor guides someone toward what is meaningful and valuable to them.

These roles can overlap in one person or be distributed across different relationships. The key question is whether a conflict of interest exists. A supervisor measured on your billable hours may not be well positioned to also guide you toward your own career satisfaction and long-term goals (though they still might be! Just be aware of potential competing contingencies). 

The Defining Feature of Mentorship: Self-Management

Dr. Eldridge draws a practical line between supervision and mentorship. When she is directly observing someone's performance, that is supervision. When she is asking how someone thinks a session went and guiding them to notice what worked and what did not, that is mentorship.

The defining feature, she says, is supporting self-management. Mentorship is not about teaching discrete skills through direct instruction. It is about helping someone develop the ability to self-detect when things are going well and when they are not, and to problem-solve from there. Longer-horizon skills like time management, setting limits, and navigating values conflicts fall squarely in the mentorship domain.

Finding the Right Mentor Fit

Before entering a mentoring relationship, Dr. Eldridge recommends asking one foundational question: will this person give me honest guidance even when it is not in the best interest of the organization?

She also points to Brené Brown's Braving Inventory, a free framework for evaluating trust in a relationship, as a useful tool. The acronym covers Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Non-judgment, and Generosity. Beyond trust, experiential fit matters. A mentor who has actually navigated insurance-funded services, school-based practice, or whatever setting you are in will be better positioned to help than someone with seniority alone. And if a trusted person is not the right fit experientially, they will often know someone who is.

Her general recommendation is to seek mentorship outside your organization for career guidance, values alignment, and burnout. Internal mentorship still has a place for clinical skills that require direct access to client data and organizational systems. But for professional identity and long-term growth, an outside sometimes mentor offers something some internal structures cannot.

Formal and Informal Mentorship

Formal mentorship involves dedicated, scheduled time and a clear agreement about purpose. Informal mentorship is often opportunistic. Dr. Eldridge shares the story of her first conference presentation at CalABA in 2009, before she had even received her BCBA exam results. A more experienced presenter she had just met offered to walk down to the presentation room together to practice. That person gave no formal feedback on delivery. She simply made the opportunity available, shared that she still gets nervous, and offered a few small strategies. Dr. Eldridge says she still checks rooms before presentations because of that encounter, and she does not even remember her name. 

Peer mentorship is equally real. Colleagues at similar career stages often serve as informal mentors for each other, offering perspective and honest feedback that is harder to get from someone in a position of authority. These relationships are frequently reciprocal.

Building a Mentorship Network

Dr. Eldridge notes that the field's rapid growth has changed the landscape for new practitioners. When she became board certified in 2009, she was the 36th BCBA in Arizona. That small community built close connections out of necessity. Today, with more than 80,000 certified behavior analysts, those connections do not happen automatically, especially in large organizations or large online graduate programs.

Her advice: get involved in your state or local chapter association. Attend social events. Go to poster sessions at conferences. Meet people before you ask anything of them. That breadth of exposure across different settings and practitioners is something a single organization or online cohort cannot replicate.

Key Takeaways

• Supervision and mentorship are distinct, but sometimes overlap: supervision targets performance outcomes (often set by an organization), while mentorship supports goals chosen by the mentee.

• The defining feature of mentorship is supporting self-management, not just skill acquisition.

• Evaluate potential mentors on both trustworthiness and relevant experience, not seniority or title alone.

   

• Outside mentorship is sometimes more effective for general career guidance and values-based decisions, where organizational conflicts of interest are most likely.

   

• Informal and peer mentorship are real and valuable. Some of the most lasting professional lessons come from unexpected connections.

   

• Get involved in your state association. It is one of the most practical ways to build a mentorship network, especially out of large or online programs.

   

• Do not be afraid to ask. Most people in this field want to help.

Connect with Dr. Becky Eldridge

• LinkedIn: Becky Eldridge

• Website: https://beckyeldridge.com

Resources

• Building and Sustaining Meaningful and Effective Relationships as a Supervisor and Mentor, by Dr. Linda LeBlanc, Dr. Tyra Sellers, and Dr. Shahla Ala'i-Rosales
  
  
• Dare to Lead by Brené Brown, including the BRAVING Inventory (available free on her website)

Keep the Conversation Going

Mentorship is not a luxury for new BCBAs. It is one of the clearest predictors of whether someone stays in the field and grows into the clinician they want to be. To hear the full conversation with Dr. Becky Eldridge, listen to this episode of In the Field: The ABA Podcast.

For more resources on onboarding, supervision, and staff development, visit Sidekick Learning.