Supervision

Last updated: 28 August 2020

Why supervision is important

Supervision is the support and guidance you get from colleagues or managers. It involves:

• discussing ongoing cases and issues arising from them
• talking through the impact the work personally has on you
• reviewing decision-making
• making sure you are working safely in line with legal and statutory guidance

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 enables you to explore your practice

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.

What you could do

You could work with your supervisor, manager, mentor or a peer to discuss your current practice and think about your values, decision making and ethics.

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. You could include your personal reflection detailing how you identified your learning needs and the outcome of any learning in a supervision session.