4.3 Going further
You may wish to search online for examples and guidance about different models of professional supervision, including peer supervision. Try, for example, the Community Care, SCIE and IRISS websites, or search ‘supervision in social work’ on YouTube. Kettle’s (2015) paper (Activity 6) also contains some further reading in the references section.
There are many other sources of advice about ensuring successful social work supervision. Your employer or practice educator/assessor may produce guidance or offer suggestions for books and websites. You may also wish to search online for BASW’s supervision policy.
In this section you have extended your learning about supervision to consider its benefits for developing emotional resilience, and you have developed some practical ideas for improving your own supervision practice. Grant and Brewer (2014, p. 64) assert that:
Organisations have a moral imperative as well as a duty of care to manage the wellbeing of their employees effectively… There is an expectation that employers provide good supportive supervision, and social workers who do not receive the support required for safe effective professional practice need to make their employers aware of this shortfall.
Unfortunately the reality of a high-pressure social work office does not always match up to the principles outlined by BASW, and the Community Care journal frequently reports instances where social workers are left unsupported despite high workloads (Schraer, 2016). In some circumstances, you may need to seek reflective (professional) supervision from someone other than your manager or supervisor. Some organisations encourage peer supervision, and some multi-agency teams enable their staff to access external supervision from someone in their own profession.