ABA Fieldwork Tracker
Two roles, and they are not interchangeable#
The question “who can supervise an RBT” has two answers, because there are two distinct roles with different eligibility rules. Most confusion comes from treating them as one.
An RBT Supervisor provides the ongoing monthly supervision. An RBT Requirements Coordinator holds a different, organizational responsibility. The credentials required for each are not the same, and getting this wrong means an arrangement that looks compliant and is not.
Who can be an RBT Supervisor#
An RBT Supervisor must hold an active BCBA, BCBA-D or BCaBA certification in good standing, and must have completed the 8-hour supervision training based on the current supervision curriculum outline before beginning to supervise.
That word “before” is doing real work. The training is a prerequisite, not something to complete during the first few months. Supervision provided before it is finished was provided by someone not yet eligible to provide it, and the months affected are the RBT’s problem as much as the supervisor’s.
“In good standing” is also worth checking rather than assuming. A lapsed certification does not announce itself to the person being supervised, and the person most exposed is the RBT whose monthly requirement depends on it.
Note that a BCaBA can serve as an RBT Supervisor. This surprises people who have absorbed the separate rule about BCaBAs requiring oversight themselves. That rule is a BCaBA-credential requirement from the BCaBA Handbook. It is not a rule about RBT supervision, and it does not disqualify a BCaBA from supervising an RBT.
Who can be an RBT Requirements Coordinator#
Here the rules differ. An RBT Requirements Coordinator must be a BCBA or BCBA-D. A BCaBA cannot hold this role.
This is the single most common eligibility error, and it happens in a specific way. An organization staffed by BCaBAs, quite correctly, has them supervising RBTs. Someone then assumes the same people can serve as Coordinators. They cannot, and the arrangement is short a role nobody noticed was missing.
There is also a structural rule: an organization may have multiple Coordinators, but an RBT may have only one Coordinator per organization. One RBT, at most one Coordinator, at each place they work.
That last clause matters for anyone working at more than one site: Coordinators are counted per organization, so if both of your employers use one, you have one at each. Supervision itself is already met separately at every organization and cannot be pooled, and the Coordinator structure follows the same per-organization shape.
What happens without one#
This is not a paperwork technicality. An RBT with no supervisor or coordinator on record is treated as inactive, and may not practise, bill, or represent themselves as an RBT.
The situation usually arrives by accident rather than neglect. A supervisor leaves, a contract ends, or a caseload transfers, and the RBT keeps working while the replacement is arranged. During that interval they are not covered, and the months involved are documented as months without an eligible supervisor.
A related requirement compounds it: an RBT needs a supervisor or coordinator for every client they work with, not merely enough coverage to satisfy a percentage. Taking on a new client outside the existing arrangement creates a gap even when the monthly totals still look healthy.
What supervising actually involves#
For anyone weighing whether to take this on, the monthly obligation is concrete: a minimum proportion of the RBT’s behavior-analytic service hours supervised, delivered across real-time contacts with at least one individual, including direct observation of the RBT working with a client. The sourced figures are on the requirements page. How many RBTs one supervisor can take on is a separate question: the BACB does not set a number, and the monthly math for a whole caseload shows what each supervisee adds. If you are still setting up, the training, first-year and CEU steps are in how to become a BCBA supervisor.
Two details shape the workload more than the percentage does. Observation must be genuinely real-time: the RBT Handbook warns that video monitoring on its own, without real-time interaction or feedback, may not count as supervision. And supervision is client focused, so it can’t count toward the RBT’s professional development. One event, one purpose.
The documentation is a shared obligation. Both the supervisor and the RBT retain records for at least seven years, and the record must name supervisors, evidence the supervisor’s relationship to the client, and distinguish individual from group contacts. A supervisor who assumes the RBT is keeping this is holding half a record.
Making it workable#
Supervising several RBTs across organizations turns this into a real administrative load, which is where most arrangements quietly degrade.
Supervisor accounts are free and read-only. You review each supervisee’s hours, dashboard and records without the ability to alter what they logged, which is the correct arrangement: their record stays theirs, and your signature stays yours.
The part worth having is the monthly view. Rather than reconstructing at month end whether each person had enough contacts, whether one was individual, and whether an observation occurred, the checks run continuously and surface a short month while there is still time to arrange something.
Signing follows the same principle. Monthly supervision records arrive in a queue, you review the month and countersign electronically, and both parties keep a copy, which is what the retention rule expects. Details are on the supervisor overview.
