Supervision

Supervision is the support and guidance you get from a supervisor, manager, mentor, or peer. It involves:

• discussing ongoing cases and issues arising from them
• reflecting on and learning from practice
• supporting and maintaining wellbeing
• reviewing practice and decision making, ensuring they are in line with legal and statutory guidance.

Why supervision is important

Effective supervisory relationships allow you to develop personally and professionally through trust, honesty, accountability and empathy. The relationships should be emotionally supportive, but challenge you to reflect on your practice and on the needs of the people you support.

Supervision can look different depending on workplaces and settings. For example, this could be peer supervision, or you could be supervised by another professional such as nurse, counsellor or psychologist.

Supervision, in whatever form it takes, should support you to consider your values and judgements and allow you to explore your practice, including ethical dilemmas, cultural issues and decision making.

How to get the most out of supervision

Be prepared

It’s important to know what you want to get out of a supervision session, whether that’s a space to discuss new ideas, reflect on your experiences at work, or think about your career progression. Try to identify your goals for supervision in advance – writing this down can be useful. Be sure to tell your supervisor what these goals are, so they can support you in achieving them.

Consider the other parts of the CPD standard

Considering the other parts of the CPD standard can enrich your supervision, as well as resulting in high-quality, reflective CPD. For example, you could discuss:

• feedback you have received from colleagues or people you support, and how you will learn from this (standard 4.1)
• what research, theories and frameworks you are learning about, or have applied to your practice (standard 4.3)
• how your values and ethics have influenced your decision making (standard 4.8)

Look for areas of improvement

Supervision will help you look at areas for improvement and determine what learning you need to be able to make those improvements. Make sure you are not just discussing what went well at work, but what went wrong, or could be done better next time. Identify clear, tangible goals to help you improve.

How to record supervision in your online account

Reflect on your supervision after it has taken place. Think about how you have benefitted from the supervision and what you have learned. You should consider the impact of this learning, and what changes you have made, or will make, to your practice as a result of the supervision.

More broadly, you could write about how your relationship with your supervisor benefits you, and why supervision is important to your work. You do not need to upload your supervision notes.

Alternatively, if you did not find your supervision to be beneficial, reflect on why that is, and how you could seek out more constructive supervision in future.