Managing practice

Supervision and team leadership

Introduction

Effective supervision and team management involves:

• organisation of time and team participation
• effective facilitation of team meetings
• team leadership

Individual and group supervision are important parts of the first-line manager's job as a manager of practice. However, managing practice involves more than formal supervision, as it looks at the best use of the whole team's resources. This means that the first line manager should know what staff are doing and how they are doing it and be able to give consistent, judicious leadership to the team. Supervision is often thought of as a one-to-one activity. However, many of the principles and aims of individual supervision can be applied to group supervision. If you supervise a group of colleagues you are likely to find some of the skills and techniques of team development useful. The difference between the two is probably one of emphasis: group supervision is likely to focus more on direct work with service users and carers, looking at the inter-personal skills, judgements and approaches used by group members. In supporting and leading the professional work of your team, you are likely to use all three approaches: the table below sets out some of their characteristics to help you decide which approach to use when. A mixture of all three will probably be most effective. For example a statutory team used to thinking in terms of individual allocated cases may find group supervision very helpful. A day care team, used to collective direct work may find the change of emphasis provided by a team development session just as stimulating.

Individual supervision

• Ensures line-manager attention to the quality of work, including issues of accountability and formal decision making.
• Offers a semi-private setting
• Provides time and focus for the individual worker
• Reflects the individual case-load approach of statutory services
• Focuses on direct work with users and carers

Group supervision

• Encourages open and professional attitudes to learning
• Uses the various abilities within the group
• Offers a range of perspectives and skills to individuals
• Supports the concept of collective practice and service delivery
• Reflects the group approach of residential and day care services
• Focuses on direct work with users and carers

Team development

• Focuses on the collective responsibility of the group as representatives of their organisation
• Looks at infra-structure, continuous improvement and how the team can work together most effectively
• Looks at the wider picture not only at individual client contact