1. MAIN HEADER GOES HERE
• Bullets and body text here.
Using the SSSC
Supervision Learning
Resource to improve
supervision experiences
Insert your
Service logo
2. WHAT YOU’LL GET OUT OF TODAY…….
• A better understanding of what supervision is for.
• Look at how positive relationships impact on the
quality of supervision.
• Feel more comfortable taking part in effective
supervision.
• Be more aware of supervision changes within
[insert your service name]
3. LET’S START ……..
Imagine someone who has recently joined your team is
spending a day with you to become familiar with the workplace
and the job role.
They have no previous experience of supervision and have
asked you to explain what it’s about.
During a coffee break tell them what supervision is and what
your experience is.
5. WHAT’S YOUR BEST EXPERIENCE OF SUPERVISION,
A TIME WHEN YOU FEEL THAT IT WORKS WELL FOR
PEOPLE?
If possible, focus on a specific experience such as an actual
supervision session.
• What is important?
• What makes it possible?
• What does it look and feel like?
6. MAIN HEADER GOES HERE
• Bullets and body text here.
WHAT IS SUPERVISION?
7. DIFFERENT TYPES OF ONE-TO-ONE
SUPERVISION
Formal,
planned,
one-to-one
sessions
Formal
meeting set
up between
planned
sessions
Ad-hoc
informal
discussion
Planned
informal
sessions
8. MAIN HEADER GOES HERE
• Bullets and body text here.
COMING PREPARED AND MAKING THE
MOST OF SUPERVISION
9. Morrison (2005)
A BALANCED SUPERVISION
Management Mediation
Competent (in)
Accountable (for)
Performance (in)
Engaging with the organisation
Upward and downward flow of
information
Development Support
Continuing professional
development
Boundaries at work
Personal and professional responses
10. EFFECTIVE SUPERVISION SUPPORTS:
Codes of Practice
Code 3: A social service
employer must provide
learning and development
opportunities to enable
social service workers to
strengthen and develop
their skills and knowledge.
Code 6: As a social service
worker, I am accountable
for the quality of my work
and will take responsibility
for maintaining and
improving my knowledge
and skills.
Health and Social Care
Standards
3.14: I have confidence in people
who support and care for me
because they are trained,
competent and skilled, are able to
reflect on their practice and follow
their professional and
organisational codes.
11. MAIN HEADER GOES HERE
• Bullets and body text here.
A SPACE AND PLACE FOR
DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS
When addressing issues of performance
• Describe – what the person is doing (or not doing) that is problematic.
• Explain – why their behaviour or actions are problematic. Does this
impact on people who use services, colleagues, staff from other agencies,
the profession they represent or their employing organisation?
• Specify – what they should be doing instead. Depending on the nature of
the problem this may include the kind of support needed to help bring
about change.
• Consequences – what will the consequences be if they are unable or
unwilling to change? Who else will become involved for example, HR and
what are the required timescales for change to happen.
15. LINKS AND CONTACTS
SSSC Supervision Learning Resource:
http://www.stepintoleadership.info/supervision.html
Leading change in supervision:
https://www.iriss.org.uk/sites/default/files/iriss-leading-
change-in-supervision-2015-07.pdf
Achieving effective supervision:
https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/insights/achieving-
effective-supervision
enquiries@iriss.org.uk
leadership@sssc.uk.com
Editor's Notes
This presentation offers a framework to help you facilitate a discussion around effective supervision. You can edit these slides to be more specific to your organisational development needs. Our Facilitation Learning Resource may support you to facilitate a session using this presentation (https://lms.learn.sssc.uk.com/course/view.php?id=6#section-1).
You can use this presentation for a range of purposes. It could be helpful for a new or existing manager where a team may seem less committed to supervision, where staff are promoted to a supervisory role for the first time, as part of an organisation’s induction programme, to support a manager’s continuous professional development or to support an organisation to introduce a revised supervision policy and procedure.
You don't need to ask our permission to use this presentation, as long as you acknowledge the Scottish Social Services Council as the source and it's not for commercial purposes. We always like to hear how services are using our resources and we may share some examples, so if you want to tell us how you’ve used the presentation or have feedback, please email leadership@sssc.uk.com
We’ve structured the slides around our Supervision Learning Resource (http://www.stepintoleadership.info/assets/pdf/SSSC-Supervision-learning-resource-Sept-16.pdf) and you should use this as a point of reference when you facilitate a supervision session using these slides.
Other helpful resources are listed towards the end of the slides to support you to be more confident in facilitating a discussion and support others to learn and develop in the area of supervision.
The length of the session will depend on the size of audience and the aims of the sessions (as an example, these slides have been delivered to 10 support workers in approximately one hour).
When planning a session you should consider:
what you’re aiming to achieve by the end of the session
who your audience is (people being supervised, experienced supervisors, those new to a supervisory role, HR and OD colleagues)
in what context you’re delivering the session (part of induction, a new supervision policy, as a workshop as part of a wider event).
what materials you need to facilitate a session (for example, flipchart sheets, post its, pens)
how the room will be laid out, and how people can interact with the activities in twos, trios or small groups (will seats be in a row, in a small office, a large room, with tables to support group discussions).
Remember to cover housekeeping and introductions (don’t assume everyone knows each other in the room).
It’s important to explain why you are having the session today.
The aim of the session could be one or all of the following.
A chance to explore what is meant by effective supervision and how your organisation prioritises supervision (supports induction).
An opportunity to reflect on the role of a supervisor (for those who haven’t been in such a role before) (supports promotion to a supervisory role).
Time to explore changes which your organisation is making to supervision policy and process (supports organisational development).
You should facilitate bringing people to the same thinking point in the room about focusing on supervision and allowing time for people to get to know others and relax into the session. Introduce the warm up activity.
It is helpful to gauge people’s experiences of supervision to date. You can do this by following the activity on the slide, asking each person to introduce themselves to a partner and chat about the scenario for five minutes.
Seek general feedback from the room to gain an understanding of people’s thinking at the start of the session (and you can gauge if thinking changes by the end of the session).
To set the context, offer a brief explanation of your service’s supervision approach – your policy and procedure (for example, how frequently should supervisions take place, where should supervision take place , who supervises, what supervision records are kept, how are managers and staff expected to be prepared for supervision etc).
Section 2 of the Supervision Learning Resource supports this slide.
Depending on the size of audience, this can be a large group activity asking people why your organisation does supervision at all.
Facilitate the conversation by asking:
‘In your experience, who or what is affected by the discussions you have, or the decisions which are made in supervision?’
Try to be quite specific about how these impact on different people.
The literature on supervision identifies four key stakeholders:
• people using services
• staff
• the organisation
• partner organisations.
Explore the question: ‘to what extent do you take account of the perspectives of all four types of stakeholders in your supervision process either as a supervisee or supervisor?’
At this point you can facilitate a discussion which supports people to appreciate their best experience of supervision. Depending on the size of the audience, this can be an activity to do in pairs, as a table or as a whole group.
You can write the questions on a flipchart and ask people to consider their answers (perhaps calling out their answers, or recording these on post it notes, or writing directly on the flipchart sheets)
If there’s a mix of supervisors and supervisees, consider asking:
what do you say about being supervised?
what do you say about the way you supervise?
Provide time to gather feedback from people, recording their thoughts on the flipchart sheets. As the session progresses, you can refer back to these sheets to remind people of what they thought worked well in supervision.
Section 3 of the Supervision Learning Resource supports this slide.
To summarise the previous conversation you can offer a definition of supervision.
The word cloud in the slide combines the two quotes below (and provides less text on the slide for the audience):
‘A process by which one worker is given responsibility by the organisation to work with another worker(s) in order to meet certain organisational, professional and personal objectives which together promote the best outcomes for service users.’ (Morrison, 2005)
‘Supervision is a joint endeavor in which a practitioner with the help of a supervisor attends to their clients, themselves as part of their client practitioner relationships and the wider systemic context, and by doing so improves the quality of their work, transforms their client relationships, Continuously develops themselves, their practice and the wider profession.’
(Hawkins and Shohet, 2012)
You can ask people to reflect on how these definitions support their own experiences of supervision. You may wish to emphasise the importance of relationships in supporting the success of effective supervisions.
Section 6 of the Supervision Learning Resource supports this slide.
One-to-one supervision can be formal and informal.
The slide highlights the importance of supervision being responsive and flexible, particularly when working in situations that can be unpredictable and challenging. This means that although structured planned one-to-one supervision sessions are important, there will be times when an issue needs to be discussed more urgently.
Wonnacott (2014) describes four different types of one-to-one supervision which are detailed in section 6 of the Supervision Learning Resource.
Invite the audience to reflect on their own supervision over the last few months and consider:
If they were formal or informal
planned or ad hoc discussions
what impact these different types of supervision have on outcomes for themselves, for the organisation and for people who use services.
Section 4 and appendix 3 of the Supervision Learning Resource supports this slide.
Your organisation may or may not use supervision contracts. Contracts should be seen as a valuable part of the process of supervision to support the foundations of a positive supervisory relationship where both the supervisor and supervisee come prepared for supervision and make the most of supervision.
At this point you could facilitate a discussion or exercise to help the audience explore how a supervision contract (or the principles of a supervision contract) outlines the arrangements for supervision, the expectations of everyone involved and supports a positive adult to adult relationship between supervisor and supervisee.
Appendix 3 includes a list of questions you might find helpful when drawing up (or reviewing) a supervision contract and you could use this to support a discussion or exercise on everyone being prepared and having positive supervisory relationships.
Questions to prompt discussions:
describe your supervisory relationship (either as a supervisor or supervisee)
who should take most responsibility for supervision taking place?
what do you think about using a supervision contract?
what benefits do you think it might bring to your supervision?
Section 3.2 of the Supervision Learning Resource supports this slide.
Help people to understand what to expect from an effective supervision session.
Is there a balance across different functions? If so, how is this achieved?
If not, what aspects of supervision seem to take priority and why?
When you’re being supervised or are supervising what’s the biggest focus?
It’s important to illustrate the frameworks which support the need for effective supervision to be taking place.
Ask if people have a copy of the standards and codes.
Focus the discussion on how effective supervision supports what matters to people who experience the service.
Section 8 of the Supervision Learning Resource supports this slide.
Explore with the audience how difficult conversations may have to take place in supervision for both a supervisor or supervisee.
This slide and section 8 of the resource offers us a way of supporting such conversations.
Appendix 6 of the supervision learning resource provides an example of a performance management framework.
A supervision session may start with:
‘Tell me how you’re feeling?’
‘How do you keep yourself well?’
Personalise these slides to include content specific to your organisation and inform the audience of your organisation’s supervision policy and procedures, the expectations for keeping supervision records, frequency of supervision, different roles within the organisation etc.
Encourage the audience to share stories of good supervision or positive working relationships.
To facilitate a conversation, you could present the group with an anonymised example of a good and poor supervision record from your organisation and ask:
What’s your overall impression?
What do you think the worker is reflecting on?
How do you think the worker is taking responsibility for their own learning and development?
Emphasise these are free resources to support the Continuous Professional Development around supervision.
Iriss achieving effective supervision: This Iriss Insights provides a brief review of published evidence on the topic of supervision. Available at: https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/insights/achieving-effective-supervision
Iriss leading change in supervision: A report which describes the rationale, process and learning from a project led by Iriss which explored the topic of supervision with a group of six partners from across the social service sector. Available at: https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/reports/leading-change-supervision
SSSC and Iriss, leadership stories: developing effective supervision: A summary of a leadership and supervision project, telling the stories of how three organisations from across the social service sector developed their supervision experiences and the changes they made. Available at: https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/reports/leadership-stories-developing-effective-supervision
SSSC Step into Leadership: A website to help people find resources and information to develop their leadership skills and includes a specific section of supervision. Available at: http://www.stepintoleadership.info/supervision.html . There are also sections on mentoring and coaching. Available at: http://www.stepintoleadership.info/other_resources.html
Continuous Learning Framework: The framework sets out what people in the social service workforce need to be able to do their job well now and in the future and describes what employers need to do to support them. This framework can be used to support effective supervision. Available at: https://lms.learn.sssc.uk.com/course/view.php?id=7
SSSC Learning Zone: A website which offers free resources to support learning development. Available at: https://www.sssc.uk.com/supporting-the-workforce/learning-zone/
SSSC Making Better Decisions: A learning resource where you will find a number of scenarios that relate to work roles. All the scenarios reflect real situations and dilemmas in which workers have made ‘wrong’ decisions that have led to investigations about their actions. They include aspects that commonly arise in such cases. Available at: http://learn.sssc.uk.com/ftp/
Provide an update of any planned developments and changes with the service’s supervision policy and procedures.
Outline what other practices in the organisation support effective supervision (for example, spot checks, annual appraisals, feedback from people experiencing your service).
If there are changes to the service’s supervision policy and procedures how will you roll these out?
Summarise by asking:
how would you now tell someone new what supervision is?
how will we ensure the policy and records are easy to access?
is it referred to regularly?
any questions and final thoughts?
You should ask the audience to evaluate your session.
![WHAT YOU’LL GET OUT OF TODAY…….
• A better understanding of what supervision is for.
• Look at how positive relationships impact on the
quality of supervision.
• Feel more comfortable taking part in effective
supervision.
• Be more aware of supervision changes within
[insert your service name]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)