Effective supervision
Regular supervision is an essential component of accountable, safe and professional social work practice within a culture of learning and development. Supervision should be structured to include a focus on NQSW wellbeing and resilience; Professional development and learning; Reflective and reflexive case discussion; Systemic and management issues.
Effective professional supervision involves reflective dialogue and exploration that is clearly linked to practice and outcomes for people using services. The model of supervision in any service will be influenced by the organisational context and/or preferred style of the line manager.
Overview for supervisors
This information for supervisors may be used to support any training sessions that are planned with the resources and materials developed in partnership with local organisations.
There are a series of links to specific resource for supervisors with more detail and suggested learning activities. We have numbered these resources so that you can keep track of what you are exploring. You can explore each individual resource individually, however, you can also work through them in sequence by the links we have included at the bottom of each page.
There is no doubt that social workers generally and NQSW, in particular, value supervision. Managers and supervisors also recognise the importance of supervision. However, there is also a demand for specific training and support for the development of supervisors’ ability to provide quality supervision.
Supervisors do not always have time to evaluate what makes supervision valuable and apply this learning to supervision practice. There is a risk that supervision can become a habitual practice of managing cases rather than providing a space for dialogue and critical reflection. This resource aims to bring the focus on to the development of quality supervision for NQSW and provide some guidance and material on how to achieve this.
1 What is supervision?
Definitions and information on the development of supervision and learning theories
2 How people using services benefit from supervision
Information and a suggested learning activity on considering how supervision benefits the people we work with
3 Learning from NQSW Supported Year Pilots
Information and a suggested learning exercise
4 Professional values and identity in supervision
Information on professional values and identity in supervision and a suggested learning exercise
5 Learning from case reviews
Information on learning from case reviews and a suggested learning exercise
6 Professional knowledge in supervision
Information on professional knowledge in supervision and a suggested learning exercise
7 Wellbeing and resilience needs of NQSW
Information on the wellbeing and resilience needs of NQSW and a suggested learning exercise
8 Support needs of supervisors
Information on the support needs of supervisors, their development and a suggested learning exercise
9 Managing boundaries
Information on managing boundaries, difficult conversations and a suggested learning exercise
10 Diversity, Power & Professional Development
Information on diversity, power and professional development and a suggested learning exercise
11 Good supervison (including virtual) practices
Information on good supervision (including virtual) practices and a suggested learning exercise
12 Supervision models
Information on supervision models and a suggested learning exercise
13 The seven-eyed model of supervision
Information about the seven-eyed model of supervision (Hawkins et al. 2020)
14 Implementation of good supervision
Information on the implementation of good supervision approaches in your organisation
References and links
You will find references on each resource and page of this website. We are keen to include recommendations from supervisors and NQSWs in Scotland, highlighting what you have found useful in your practice.
Information & Links
- Please get in touch with us if you would like to recommend resources and links for supervisors by emailing us at nqswproject@sssc.uk.com