Introduction

In the fall of 2004 an interdisciplinary group of leaders in the field of clinical supervision research came together at the University at Buffalo for a two-day meeting to plan for the first international and interdisciplinary conference to be held in June of 2005. The conference was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and was designed to bring together practitioners, educators and researchers to critically examine the current state of knowledge in this area and to make suggestions regarding future research directions. Increasingly, National Institute of Health (NIH) funding agencies have recognized that clinical supervision is a critical element in the transfer of research findings to practice in all fields of helping. While millions were spent on the development of new knowledge if it did not reach the field as best practices they would have little impact on the delivery of services.