Managing practice

Supervision and team leadership - Effective supervision

Statement of intent

This can set out the actions to be undertaken and the values underlying such action; that is, from the 'what' of supervision to the 'why'. It states that supervision is a " reflective" process about professional thinking, actions and decisions.

Contracts, Recording and Confidentiality

Contracts set out what either party can expect from supervision and gives the agency an opportunity to audit and monitor supervision performance. They can also encourage innovative and thoughtful work.

Supervision Contract

Date..... Review date..... Practice Arrangements: Individual

We will meet for supervision

How often Where For how long

We expect that case-files, diaries and other written notes will contribute to the session

We agree that the circumstances in which supervision may be interrupted are:

The methods we will experiment with will be:

Helpful feedback will be in the form of:

What we hope to gain is:

If things go wrong, we will:

The way we're most likely to break this contract is by:

The ways we will avoid doing this will be:

We will review this contract on

We will both prepare thoroughly for the session

We will both consider these arrangements to take priority over other work except in extreme circumstances

We will book supervision sessions six months in advance

It is the supervisor's responsibility to produce supervision notes. A copy will be retained by both of us. These notes are the property of the agency and may be used to provide management information.

We will note any areas of work/development where additional /alternative professional supervision would be appropriate and aim to organise this between us.

Practice arrangements: Team

The supervisor will organise a team rota for these sessions at least six months in advance which takes into consideration the needs of individual team members.

Team members undertake to respect their colleagues supervision sessions and will not interrupt them other than in cases of emergency as defined by for each team member's contract.

Where supervision sessions are cancelled by team members then it is their responsibility to make an alternative arrangement with the supervisor.

Where supervision sessions are cancelled by the supervisor then it is her /his responsibility to make alternative arrangements with individual team members.

Content of sessions

We will review the work undertaken since the last session.

We will agree an agenda for each session and ensure that we include:

Analysis, decision making and actions on current work

Relevant research and practice knowledge and where to get this

Maintaining agency expectations and standards.

Supervisee's continuing professional development

Key Aspects

The key aspects of work we wish to focus on in between now and the review are:

Signed Supervisee Supervisor

Accountability

This sets out who is responsible for ensuring that supervision is offered and undertaken. It includes the individual supervisory pair but also other line managers, staff development officers representing the wider organisation.

Concerns and Complaints

This touches on a number of distinct areas; differences of professional opinion and judgement and how they can be arbitrated, perceived poor performance and 'whistle-blowing'. This sets supervision within the agency's wider policy frameworks and clarifies which route to take in particular circumstances.

Endorsement

This comes from a variety of sources; the Director or Chief Executive of the agency: the trade union and perhaps user and carer representatives. These statements acknowledge the importance of sound supervision to the whole agency as well as to the individual and places it firmly in the context of better services for users and carers.