LCSW supervision in Oklahoma with a supervisor who actually gets you.
If you are a little bit woo, a little bit weird, or just tired of robotic supervision that treats licensure like a checklist, we might be a good fit. Remote, statewide, and built around the clinician you already are.
Supervision should help you build a wildly successful, ethical career that vibrates at your unique frequency.
Shylah Ridgway
I own and operate two practices: Ala Therapy Collective and Halcyon Therapy. I understand what a thriving, sustainable career in this field actually requires because I am in the middle of building one.
My therapy caseload is full. I still see clients every week, enough of them that I keep a waitlist, so the only new work I can take on is forensic immigration evaluations and supervising LMSWs toward their LCSW. I did not start in a therapy office. I started in kitchens, and from there went to child welfare, doing investigations. The social work came after that, and it came from everywhere: school-based social work, community mental health, outpatient therapy, mobile crisis, medical social work. Every age, every population this field serves, and a longer list of diagnoses than any one specialty page can hold. Whatever room you are about to walk into, there is a decent chance I have already stood in it. Through our supervisory work, I will help you figure out how to actually do this work well, with the clients nobody prepared you for, in the situations where the textbook runs out.
My deep clinical areas include ADHD in women, feelings of inadequacy and codependency, repetitive relationship patterns rooted in early pain, the overall feeling of being just too much, immigration psychological evaluation, strained family relationships including parentification and estrangement, and poor boundaries and emotional intensity that is not reciprocated.
You can read more about me on my profile page or on LinkedIn.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Not every LCSW in Oklahoma can supervise for licensure. Open the Board's Search / Verify a License page, filter by Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Board Approved Supervisor, and look me up.
What the Board actually requires, in plain English.
Most of what is online about Oklahoma LCSW supervision hours is either out of date or written by a licensing tracker trying to sell you software. Here is the current picture.
The rules below come from the Oklahoma Social Worker's Licensing Act, the Board's supervision guidelines in OAC 675:12-1-6 (the Board's rules as revised June 2026), and the Board's own licensing FAQ. Requirements change. Confirm anything that affects your licensing decisions directly with the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers.
You need an LMSW first
The Board will not approve supervision toward the LCSW until you hold an Oklahoma LMSW, LMSW-P, or LSWA. Your MSW alone does not start the clock, but you do not have to pass the exam first. Your provisional license is enough to get the contract going.
The contract goes in before hour one
I start Supervision Contract Form 201, you complete and sign it, and it goes to the Board with your job description and W-4. Your hours start on the effective start date in the Board's approval letter. Hours worked before that date do not count, and the Board does not accept them retroactively. Change jobs and you need a new one.
3,000 post-MSW hours
Oklahoma requires 3,000 hours of post-MSW clinical social work practice under supervision. That number dropped from 4,000 when House Bill 3015 took effect on November 1, 2024. Third-party sites still show 4,000 all over the place. The Board and the statute say 3,000.
At least 100 hours of educational supervision
Within those 3,000 hours you need a minimum of 100 hours of face-to-face educational supervision with a Board Approved Supervisor. Remote video counts. The Board's own definition of face to face includes supervision completed using electronic platforms.
Never more than two weeks between meetings
If you work 20 or more hours a week, supervision is one hour every week or two hours every two weeks. If you work fewer than 20 hours a week, the minimum is one hour every two weeks. Two weeks is the longest gap the Board allows.
Group supervision counts, up to half
Group supervision can cover up to half of your supervision time in each evaluation period. Groups are capped at four supervisees. The rest has to be individual.
Your supervisor must be Board Approved
Not every LCSW can supervise you for licensure. Your supervisor has to hold Board Approved Supervisor status, or be an Interagency Approved Supervisor inside your own agency. Both show up on the Board's Licensee Search under their own license type filter. Check before you sign anything.
Evaluations at 1,500 and 3,000
The Board wants a written evaluation at 1,500 clinical hours and 50 supervision hours, and another at 3,000 and 100. I write it, you submit it, and it is due within 30 days of hitting each mark. Miss that window by six months and the hours in it are gone.
What you can call yourself
While you are under supervision you sign as MSW, or MSW, under supervision, or MSW, u/s. Never LCSW. The C means clinical, and the Board takes that seriously.
No contract work yet
The Board treats contract labor as private practice, and private practice of clinical social work is LCSW only. Until you are licensed, you work as an employee. Plan your job search around that.
No diagnosing on your own
While you are under supervision, you do not assign a clinical diagnosis independent of your clinical supervisor or a qualified practitioner inside your agency. Diagnosing is part of the work. Doing it alone is not, yet.
Then the exam
Once your hours and evaluations are in, you sit for the ASWB Clinical exam. Passing it, plus the Board's LCSW application, is what turns the LMSW into an LCSW.
Hours you completed in another state are reviewed by the Board case by case. If you are moving your LCSW supervision to Oklahoma partway through, email me before you assume anything transfers.
How LCSW supervision actually starts in Oklahoma, step by step.
Most LMSWs get handed the same half answer: find a supervisor and do a contract. Here is the whole sequence. Steps 1 through 5 are the same no matter who ends up supervising you. Steps 6 through 8 are what it looks like when that supervisor is me. Do them in this order and your first hour counts.
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Do not wait on your transcript
Apply for your Oklahoma LMSW as soon as you graduate.
Your first license is the LMSW, and you get it by filing an LMSW application with the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers. There is no paper form. You go to the Board's Apply for Licensure page, which sends you into the Board's online licensee portal. You create an account there, fill out the application, upload your documents, and pay the fee.
You do not have to sit around until your degree posts to start. Get the application in, then have your school send your official transcript with your degree conferred straight to the Board the moment it is available. A letter of completion from the registrar will not substitute, and schools usually take four to six weeks after graduation to post degrees.
The application also needs a background check through IdentoGO, a notarized Affidavit of Legal Status, and a photo. The affidavit has to be signed in front of a notary, so do not sign it at your kitchen table and upload it. The UPS Store offers notary services, and many banks will notarize for their own customers.
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Get your LMSW-P, then take the Masters exam inside your one year.
Once the Board approves your application, you are issued a provisional license, the LMSW-P, and you are cleared to take the ASWB Masters exam. You get one year from the date the provisional license is issued to pass. The Board tells ASWB which exam you are cleared for, so you cannot register until the Board has approved you.
Here is how the exam part actually goes:
- Go to ASWBCentral, create your account, answer the education and demographic questions, sign the Candidate Rules Agreement, and pay the exam fee by card. The fee is nonrefundable.
- Within two business days ASWB emails you an Authorization to Test. It is good for one attempt and can be valid for up to a year, but the LMSW-P clock is the one that matters.
- Schedule your seat at a Pearson test center through ASWBCentral or by phone using the instructions in that email. ASWB recommends booking four to six weeks ahead of the date you want.
- Test day: bring two original forms of ID with your first and last name exactly as they appear on your Authorization to Test, and arrive 30 minutes early. Late means no show.
- You see pass or fail on the screen when you finish. ASWB sends the official result to the Board, and the Board turns your LMSW-P into an LMSW.
- If you do not pass, you wait 90 days, register and pay again, and retest while your LMSW-P is still valid. If you missed by 10 points or less, you can ask ASWB to waive the 90 day wait. Oklahoma allows that.
Here is the part people miss: you do not have to wait until you pass the exam to start supervision. Your LMSW-P is enough to get the contract going. One warning: the provisional license is issued once. There is no second one if the year runs out.
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Land a paid job where you are an employee.
Volunteer hours do not count toward licensure, and neither does 1099 contract work. The Board treats contract labor as private practice, and private clinical practice is LCSW only. You need a paid position where you are on payroll.
While you are negotiating, ask about supervision. Many employers offer it as a benefit, either by providing an in-house supervisor or by covering the cost of an outside one. Some only offer in-house supervision. Some offer nothing and expect you to arrange and pay for it yourself. It is common enough that asking is normal, and the answer changes what this costs you over the next two years, so get it in writing before you accept.
You can get your contract approved before your first day on the job, so start this process as soon as you have an offer.
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Where people get stuck
Get two documents from your employer.
Your official job description. It has to come from your employer. Not one you wrote, not the job posting you screenshotted.
Your W-4. The one you filled out for your employer when you were hired.
Email HR or your hiring manager and ask for both now, not the week you want to start.
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Pick a supervisor who can actually sign off.
Only two kinds of people can supervise you toward the LCSW. One is a Board Approved Supervisor. That is what I am, and it is how supervision from outside your agency works. The other is an LCSW inside your own agency who is at least two years past passing the clinical exam and has completed the Board's supervisor training. Either way, the Board approves the contract that names them. Your agency cannot just decide someone is your supervisor, and hours under anyone who does not qualify do not count.
Whoever it is, check them. Here is how:
- Go to the Board's Search / Verify a License page. It opens the Licensee Search, which is the Board's own live data, so what you see there is as good as asking the Board directly.
- For a Board Approved Supervisor, me included, open the Filter by license type dropdown, scroll to and choose Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Board Approved Supervisor. The list has several supervisor options that look alike. That is the one for LCSW supervision.
- Now search. Type a last name if you already have someone in mind, or a city if you are starting from scratch.
- For someone in house at your agency, pick the matching Interagency Approved Supervisor option in that same dropdown instead and look them up. If they are not there, they are not approved, no matter what your agency told you.
- You will come up in that same search once your application is in. It is where I verify your license, and your employer does the same. What the search does not show is who is supervising whom, so nobody can look up your supervision status there.
- Found someone who checks out? Email them. If that someone is me, we set up a Zoom to see if we are a good fit, and the rest of this page is what happens next.
Emailing me? Put this in it and we skip a round of back and forth.
- Your license number, LMSW or LMSW-P
- When you want your hours to start counting
- Your employer and job title, or the offer you are weighing
- Whether you have your official job description and W-4 yet
- Your weekly hours, total not clinical, since 20 or more changes how often we meet
- Any supervised hours from another state or another supervisor
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I start Form 201. You finish it.
The supervision contract is Supervision Contract Form 201, an online e-sign form on the Board's Agency Forms page. I open it and fill in my side and most of yours, since I have done this many times and you have not. You fill in what is left, upload your job description and W-4, and sign.
Page two asks for your focus of supervision. I write that. It is not a copy of your job description. It is a plain statement of what we are going to work on, and I have written enough of them to know what the Board wants to see.
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Watch for the approval email.
The Board says contracts get top priority and are generally approved the day they come in. Your approval email includes a letter with your effective start date.
That date is when your hours begin. Not the day you signed. Not the day you hit submit. Save that letter somewhere you will find it in two years.
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First hour on or after your start date.
From here you log clinical hours and supervision hours. The Board works in two evaluation periods, each one at a minimum of 1,500 clinical hours and 50 hours of educational supervision, and the paperwork for each period is due within 30 days of finishing it. I have a tracking spreadsheet if you want one, and I check in on where you are.
Every hour of this happens over Zoom. The Board's definition of face to face supervision includes supervision completed using electronic platforms, so remote hours are not a workaround or a special request. They are the rule.
If you are still on your LMSW-P, keep your exam date in sight. The provisional license has a one year clock of its own.
Hours that will not count, no matter how hard you worked them.
- 1099 or contract labor positions
- Volunteer hours, even clinical ones
- Anything before the effective start date on your approval letter
- Hours under someone who is not Board Approved or qualified inside your agency
- Hours in any period whose paperwork reaches the Board more than six months late
- Group supervision over half your total time, or in a group bigger than four
Changing jobs? You do not terminate supervision with me, but you do need a new contract. Your Form 201 is tied to your employer and your job description, so a new job means a new Form 201 with the new job description, and the rule gives you 30 days. Email me the minute you have an offer so the new contract is in before your first day, because hours only count under an approved contract. Changing supervisors is different. That ends the contract. Termination of Supervision Form 208 has 14 days to reach the Board, the evaluations and supervision log for that period are due within 30 days, and a new contract has to be approved before hours count again.
A word about the Oklahoma Board.
I am licensed in six states. None of the others compare to ours. James Marks and Jinna Dreessen are the most down to earth, helpful folks you will deal with in this whole process. They actually answer when you call. They respond to emails. When you submit something, the turnaround is excellent.
It can be intimidating to reach out to a licensing board, understandably. These two are helpful, kind, and chill. Email info@oswb.ok.gov, or call James at (405) 521-3712 or Jinna at (405) 521-3715.
Steps reflect the Board's Agency Forms and FAQ pages, its Agency Rules as revised June 2026, and the ASWB exam pages as of October 2026. Forms and rules change. Confirm anything that affects your licensure with the Board.
Two core values. One very direct supervisor.
My approach is grounded in Authenticity and Adventure. Here is what that actually looks like in practice.
Show Up as Yourself
No performance, no pretending you have it all figured out, and no shame around the hard stuff. If a session went sideways, say so. If you froze, say so. The clinician I am supervising is the one who actually exists, not the one you think a supervisor wants to see. That is the only version I can help.
Off Script Work
The textbook runs out fast. Supervision is where we work on the cases that do not fit the manual: the client who does not meet criteria for anything but is clearly not okay, the ethical call with no clean answer, the diagnosis you are second guessing at 11pm. You will leave with sharper assessment and diagnostic skills and a clear sense of who you are as a clinician.
The Essentials, Done Right
You still get everything the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers requires: ethics, clinical competence, assessment and diagnosis, social work methodology, and the contract and evaluations done on time. I am trained in CBT, EMDR, and The Daring Way, and you can read how the practice approaches clinical work on The Ala Approach.
LMSWs building careers worth showing up for.
I work with LCSW supervisees across Oklahoma at all stages of the licensure process.
- LMSWs pursuing LCSW licensure in Oklahoma
- Clinicians in community mental health settings
- Group practice and private practice therapists
- Telehealth and virtual service providers (see how we run online therapy in Oklahoma)
- Clinicians serving LGBTQIA+ populations
- Clinicians working with ADHD and neurodivergent clients
- Therapists interested in trauma-informed practice
- Social workers building toward private practice
- Clinicians interested in immigration evaluation work
- Social workers in OKC, Tulsa, Norman, Edmond, and rural Oklahoma
Included. Not an upsell.
Most supervisors clock out at 60 minutes. Your $75 per hour includes two ongoing group spaces that most supervisors charge extra for or do not offer at all.
The Weekly Stop In
Same time, same day, every week. Open to clinicians, practicum students when numbers allow, and supervisees. Bring a case to staff, bring a question, or just show up and be in the room. If nothing is on fire, we use the time for body doubling. No agenda required.
Licensure Exam Study Sessions
When you start nearing D-Day, I run group study sessions for the LMSW and LCSW exams. We work through test questions together, dig into why every wrong answer is wrong, and figure out how to actually think through the thing. PowerPoint slides. Cameras off if you want them off. You will never be put on the spot, called on, or asked to perform. And absolutely no roleplay. Ever.
Supervisees who are a good fit sometimes become part of the flock.
When positions open at Ala Therapy Collective, we look first to people we already know and trust. No guarantees, and no pressure. But if building a career inside a practice that runs the way this one does sounds appealing, it is worth knowing that door exists. Meet the current flock in the Ala Aviary, or read about joining the flock.
Remote, straightforward, and easy to manage.
Supervision is provided remotely via Zoom. I am a Board Approved Supervisor in Oklahoma and also hold licensure in California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Texas, and Utah.
One hour sessions, scheduled weekly on the same day and time. Remote via Zoom.
$75 per hour for LCSW supervisees. Includes access to the Weekly Stop In and Exam Study Sessions at no extra charge.
Scheduling, billing, and documentation handled through SimplePractice, a HIPAA-compliant platform, with client portal access.
The stuff you actually want to know.
How many supervision hours do I need for LCSW licensure in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma requires 3,000 hours of post-MSW clinical practice under supervision, including at least 100 hours of face-to-face educational supervision with a Board Approved Supervisor. The 3,000 figure took effect November 1, 2024 under House Bill 3015 and replaced the old 4,000 hour requirement. Always verify current requirements directly with the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers before making licensing decisions.
How often do I have to meet with my supervisor?
The Board allows a maximum of two weeks between educational supervision meetings. If you work 20 or more hours a week, that means one hour weekly or two hours every two weeks. If you work fewer than 20 hours a week, the minimum is one hour every two weeks. With me, supervision is weekly, same day and time.
What do I need in place before supervision can start?
You need an Oklahoma LMSW or LMSW-P (or LSWA), a paid job where you are an employee, your official job description and W-4 from your employer, and a Form 201 supervision contract approved by the Board. Your hours start on the effective start date in the Board's approval letter. Anything before that date does not count and cannot be added later. The step by step version is in Getting Started above.
Can I complete my LCSW supervision hours online in Oklahoma?
Yes. All supervision with me is conducted remotely via Zoom, which counts toward your Oklahoma licensure hours. I have been doing this remotely across multiple states for years. The Zoom thing is not a workaround here, it is just how we work.
Does group supervision count toward my hours?
Yes, up to half of your supervision time in each evaluation period, in groups of no more than four supervisees. The Weekly Stop In is a group space, so it can count for some of that time when it is structured as educational supervision. Your individual hour is still the foundation.
What does supervision cost?
Supervision is $75 per hour. That covers your weekly individual session plus access to the Weekly Stop In group and Licensure Exam Study Sessions at no additional charge. No packages, no deposits, no surprise fees.
Can any LCSW in Oklahoma supervise me for licensure?
No. Your supervisor has to hold Board Approved Supervisor status with the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers, or be an Interagency Approved Supervisor inside your own agency, which means an LCSW at least two years past passing the clinical exam who has completed the Board's supervisor training. Both show up on the Board's Licensee Search under their own license type filter, and the Board approves the contract either way. Hours under anyone else do not count. Look me up.
What is your supervisory style?
Direct, collaborative, and actually invested in you building a career that fits who you are. I am not going to tell you what kind of clinician to be. I am going to help you figure out who you already are clinically and build from there. Hard cases, ethical complexity, imposter syndrome, scope questions, all of it is fair game.
Can I start supervision while I am still on my provisional license (LMSW-P)?
Yes. Once the Board approves your LMSW application you are issued a provisional license, the LMSW-P, and that is enough to get a supervision contract going. You do not have to pass the ASWB Masters exam first. You do have one year from the date the provisional license is issued to pass it, and the provisional license is issued only once.
What happens to my supervision if I change jobs?
You do not terminate supervision with me, but you do need a new contract. Your Form 201 is tied to your employer and your job description, so a new job means a new Form 201 with the new job description, and the rule gives you 30 days. Email me the minute you have an offer so the new contract is in before your first day, because hours only count under an approved contract.
Do you offer supervision for clinicians interested in immigration evaluations?
Yes. I conduct immigration psychological evaluations as a core part of my practice, and supervisees interested in that area of forensic social work get exposure to that work through our supervision relationship.
Reviewed by Shylah Ridgway, LCSW, LICSW, founder and clinical director of Ala Therapy Collective and an Oklahoma Board Approved Supervisor. Updated October 2026.
One student at a time, intentionally.
We are a small practice and currently support one practicum student at a time. To inquire about availability, reach out to practicum@alatherapycollective.com.
Let's see if we are a good fit.
Email me at supervision@alatherapycollective.com and tell me where you are in the process. No pressure, no checklist, just a conversation.
Build a career that actually fits who you are.