Carole Adamson

Supervision is Not Politically Innocent

Abstract This paper argues that the potential tensions within the role, function, and purpose of supervision, potentially magnified by the adoption of the process within a variety of organisational and occupational settings, underscore the importance of supervision being seen as a contextually informed activity. Supervision can be constructed as a professional development activity with processes of reflection that are potentially active contributors to practitioner resilience. It can also be viewed as a developmental tool that assists a worker adapt to the workplace context and to process environmentally located challenges and tensions. Within some workplaces, supervision has an active managerial and risk-management function. Using the lens of resilience theories, this paper addresses key issues for supervision emerging from its different functions and argues that in becoming aware of its contextual location in complex practice and organisational environments, supervision practice itself cannot remain politically innocent.

‘Never Trust Anybody Who Says “I Don’t Need Supervision”’: Practitioners’ Beliefs about Social Worker Resilience

Yin noted the requirement for social workers to provide ‘supportive, empowering and strengths-based (resilience building) services’ and asked ‘when the workers themselves are burning out … do we provide the same for them?’. Many researchers have since explored this question, seeking explanations as to how some social workers survive and thrive and others are lost to the profession. The authors of this small exploratory study were interested in exploring practitioners’ understanding of resilience. A qualitative approach was employed to explore practitioner views about what contributed to their own resilience, augmented by data gathered in interviews with those providing supervision to students. Findings suggest a conceptual framework incorporating three aspects of resilience: core attributes within the individual, the practice context and a series of mediating factors. Participant accounts suggested a multifaceted and dynamically balanced awareness of resilience that highlighted the relational and contextual characteristics of their experience. This article reports one significant theme emerging from the study; namely that supervision and collegial support are recognised as vital in the nurturing of practitioner resilience.

Teaching trauma: Critically engaging a troublesome term

How the social work profession supports people to live through experiences of trauma and helps to facilitate recovery represents an important base of our practice. Whilst the impacts of trauma in peoples lives cannot be discounted, there remains significant scope to further inquire into how people respond to traumatic situations and locate their own sources of healing, hope and survival. Drawing on two different case studies—one with resettled Sudanese refugees in Australia and another involving critical incident debriefing—this paper looks to address the complex intersections between trauma, well-being and the roles of social work pedagogy and practice.

Reactions to driving cessation: a qualitative study of people with dementia and their families:

Objectives: A proportion of older people with mild dementia are safe to drive. However, driving cessation is recommended at some point as the disease progresses. Driving cessation can have significant psychological and social consequences on people with dementia and their carers. This paper aims to explore the psychosocial and adjustment issues following driving cessation for people with dementia and their supporters. Method: Participants and their supporters were interviewed within 1 month of driving-cessation advice, and again 6 months later. Issues associated with driving cessation were explored in semi-structured interviews. Results: Seven participants and their supporters were recruited. This has generated a total of 22 transcripts for qualitative analysis including follow-up interviews. For those who could remember the details of driving cessation, most were unhappy with the decision. Carers who were supportive of driving cessation questioned the legality of it. Most participants minimised the impact of their driving cessation on their supporters. Most supporters were negatively affected by the decision. Conclusions: The preliminary findings highlight the need for a more comprehensive process for driving cessation in those with dementia, with closer links to regulatory bodies, and increased support for their families/carers.

Social Work Under Pressure: How to Overcome Stress, Fatigue and Burnout in the Workplace

identified in other chapters, for example, Wilmot’s and Shohet’s final chapter. The uniqueness that the book has is the sharing of personal experiences of supervision and journeys from each writer. Each contributor reveals their vulnerabilities and through this exposure, we understand the learning that they have achieved. The writers invite the reader to share and consider their own experiences. This assists in engaging the reader and successfully attempts to build the relationship with the writer. As Breene points out in her chapter, personal stories are shared to encourage a curiosity in the reader, to engage with rather than to keep a distance. Rather like a supervision session. This is a book that invigorates existing beliefs held by passionate supervisors and supervisees about the potential supervision can bring to learning. It also is relevant reading for anyone who wishes to be inspired with possibilities for change and development in their career.