Peer Supervision in Occupational Social Work

No abstract available for this article.     

On Parallel Process in Social Work Supervision

The recognition and study of parallel process in social work supervision offers both the social work supervisor and supervisee a rich learning opportunity at the moment when an impasse seems unworkable. The parallel process is an unconscious replication in the supervisory session of therapeutic difficulties which a supervisee has with a client. This replication may originate with the supervisor unwittingly modeling behavior that is then taken by the social worker into the therapeutic interaction with the client. This paper reviews the need for social workers to grasp the dynamics of the parallel process, discusses the literature for the historical development of the phenomenon, addresses supervisory methods that will uncover the process, and illustrates the supervisor's stages of exploration and modeling in addressing the parallel process.     

The Role of Supervision in Professional Development of Social Work Specialists

The professionals use social services supervision as an educational and administrative process, meant to support. Supervision is a relatively new field introduced in the Romanian social welfare institutions. The article approaches the role of supervision in the process of professional development of social workers, following a research based on Grounded theory. We conducted this research into an elite NGO, in the North-Eastern Romania, in the domain of child protection. Supervision is a social practice based on the relationship between a person with extensive professional experience and a professional effectively involved in case management. Supervision is seen as a prerequisite to quality social services organization. Effectiveness of the supervision process may be an indicator of the quality of social work practice in an organization. The data were collected through interviews of participants in the research. The interviewed subjects operate with a definition of the supervision as being a practice based on individual or group interview, formal or informal, consisting in a series of specific phases (initial, development, end). Supervision involves the establishment of professional relationships between the participants and the quality of services and training received. This definition is partially different from those in the literature.     

Enriching Social Work Supervision from the Competence Perspective

Abstract

Various aspects of social work supervision are viewed from the competence perspective in order to conceptualize the grounds for competence-centered supervision, and to point out the potential enrichment of social work education. The paper defines worker competence and outlines several basic guidelines for competence-centered supervision. Discussion of both the content of competence-oriented supervision and the characteristics of the competence-oriented supervisor follow. Procedures of evaluating the supervisee's competence then are suggested. Finally, the processes of competence-centered supervision are analyzed, and the usefulness of a unifying scheme of competence for practice, supervision, and education in social work is highlighted.     

The Reflective Learning Model: Supervision of Social Work Students

A key task for the field education supervisor is to facilitate reflection in beginning practice, and to promote in the student a sense of ownership, mastery and understanding of his or her clinical process. At the same time the supervisor is charged to instruct and guide the student. A major challenge for the supervisor is to balance these two dimensions of supervision and maintain a focus on the student's experience rather than the supervisor's expertise. The authors present a Reflective Learning Model which identifies the importance of both facilitative and didactic interventions within effective supervision. A case study is provided to demonstrate the model in action.     

Attending to Social Justice in Clinical Social Work: Supervision as a Pedagogical Space

Although social justice is a central professional value of social work articulated in ethics codes, clinical social workers have been long criticized for not clearly incorporating this professed commitment into practice. Supervision is an optimal space within which clinicians can develop knowledge and skills to attend to the issues related to social justice in their practice. A growing body of literature emphasizes social justice in the delivery of clinical services, yet there is a death of literature on how clinical supervision can promote social justice seeking clinical work. In this paper, we draw from existing literature to identify key elements involved in social justice seeking clinical supervision. Using Goodyear’s (Clin Superv 33:82–99, 2014) learning mechanisms of clinical supervision, which consists of modeling, feedback, direct instruction, and self-directed learning, we discuss a case composite to illustrate ways in which clinical supervision can serve as a pedagogical space to advance clinical social workers’ commitment to social justice.     

Developing Advanced Practitioners in Mental Health Social Work: Pedagogical Considerations

Advanced social work practitioners in mental health services daily face the challenges of working alongside the more powerful professions of psychiatry and psychology. Advanced post-qualifying programmes in mental health social work equip practitioners with the knowledge, skills and expertise to confidently work alongside both psychiatrists and clinical psychologists in multi-disciplinary teams. This includes training in empirical research methods, which are used to develop the evidence base for psychiatry and psychology, although social work practitioners find this particularly challenging. This paper explores the importance of research methods teaching in the development of advanced practitioners in mental health social work. Using learning theory to explore possible reasons why practitioners find it so difficult, it offers some solutions which may enhance the learning and teaching of research methodology to experienced social workers.     

Attachment-informed Supervision for Social Work Field Education

Supervisory relationships present a new population for the application of attachment theory, and conceptualization of attachment-informed supervision training offers a new direction for study. This paper presents an 8-month model of supervision training for social work field instructors of MSW students. The training’s design incorporates primary attachment concepts with an understanding of the supervisory working alliance and parallel process. An overview of the in-person and on-line pilot training is presented, including perceptions from the participants regarding the training’s usefulness. This training program has implications for effective social work field education, and recommendations are suggested for future attachment research on supervision.

Goal-Directed Supervision of Social Work Students in Field Placement

Abstract

Permanency Planning for Children , by Anthony N. Maluccio, Edith Fein, and Kathleen A. Olmstead. London: Tavistock Publications, 1986. Reviewed by Donald Brieland

Feminist Visions for Social Work , edited by Nancy Van Den Bergh and Lynn B. Cooper. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of Social Workers, 1986. Reviewed by Cleo S. Berkum, DSW

People and Contexts: Social Development from Birth to Old Age , by Henry S. Maas. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1984. Reviewed by Harris Chaiklin

Case Management in Human Service Practice by Marie Weil, James M. Karls, and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1985. Reviewed by Doman Lum

Law and the Mental Health System: Civil and Criminal Aspects , by Ralph Reisner. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1985. Reviewed by Wynne Sandra Korr

Testing the Social Safety Net , by Martha R. Burt and Karen J. Pittman. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 1985. Reviewed by Julia M. Watkins     

The Interface of Racial Identity Development with Identity Complexity in Clinical Social Work Student Practitioners

This paper examines the influence that one's racial identity development plays in the overall professional identity development of clinical social work student practitioners. The author discusses race, as a construct, in a post-modern world. Utilizing Saari's (1993, 2000) discussion of identity complexity, the paper demonstrates how the ability to dialogue about issues of race, in a complex and multi-faceted way, is reflective of evolution in one's racial identity development. To further one's identity development, the importance of a dialogical mode of interaction (Bahktin, 1986, 1993) is emphasized.     

Constructing Critical Conversations in Social Work Supervision: Creating Change

Clinical social work supervision is not immune to enactments of racial and social injustice, prejudice, power and privilege rampant in our social environment and institutions. These dynamics are active in all social interactions. Most often felt on impact, these remain underground and unevenly experienced—though predominantly by people representing intersecting marginalized identities. Such real enactments can be misunderstood or avoided in social work supervision. Negative consequences not only impede learning for the supervisee and supervisor, and affect clinical understanding of client care they also perpetuate injustice based on power and social locations. Social work supervision provides space for critical analysis to identify and alter dynamics of power, privilege, and social oppression. The critical conversations (CC) model provides a framework to illuminate and examine power dynamics in order to produce change with parallel insight and action—supervisee, supervisor, and client care. Supervisee and supervisor gain capacity to engage in reflection, examine personal and professional values, hold tension and tolerate ambiguity, use one self critically, articulate ideas and insights thoughtfully and effectively, as well as inform clinical understanding of clients. The need for critical dialogue in social work supervision regarding dynamics of sameness, differences, intersectional identities, power and privilege is emphasized. Theoretical grounding is offered to elucidate how complex structural forces of oppression and privilege, cultural patterns and narratives are internalized. A definition of CC, its theoretical underpinnings and the CC model are presented with a case scenario to illuminate the application of the CC model in clinical supervision.     

The Extent and Nature of Practitioners,Encounters with Alcohol and Other Drug Use in Social Work and Social Care Practice

This article considers the extent and nature of social work and social care practitioners' experience of working with service users whose lives are affected by the problematic use of alcohol or other drugs (AOD). It draws on the findings of a national study of ‘working with alcohol and drug use’ which was conducted in England in 2010–2011. The study reported here comprised an online survey of front-line practitioners (n = 597), complemented by 12 practitioner focus groups and interviews with 21 key informants from participating local authorities and substance use treatment services. This paper focuses primarily on data from one element of the survey. Findings indicate that the great majority of staff encountered service users who are affected by AOD problems at some level, although there were differences between groups of practitioners in the extent and nature of AOD problems for different groups of service users. The differential experiences of staff according to their client groups underlines the need for education and professional development not only to provide training on working with AOD but to ensure that training is contextualised and relevant to practitioners across the range of social work and social care services.     

Social Work Education for Leadership Roles in State Government

Educating for social work leadership is vitally important. Recent trends in state government point to an increasing need for social work personnel capable of assuming leadership positions. This article looks at state government leadership roles, major trends in state government, and the mutuality of interests of state governments and social work education. Implications for the profession are examined through discussion of curriculum building and curriculum content.     

Processes Employed by Social Work Practitioners in Child Welfare for Exchanging and Using Knowledge

Organisations in the health and social services sector expend a considerable amount of energy promoting the implementation of better practices and research data use in their establishments. In the field of social work, several studies suggest that social work practitioners do not make great use of scientific knowledge and tend to favour knowledge acquired from their colleagues or through their own occupational experience. However, interactions between types of knowledge are rarely analyzed in explanations proposed by the scientific literature. Based on research conducted with social work practitioners in child welfare, this article discusses the different ways that they acquire knowledge.     

Reconceptualizing Substance Abuse Treatment in Therapeutic Communities: Resiliency Theory and the Role of Social Work Practitioners

ABSTRACT

Although therapeutic communities (TC) have achieved promising results in the treatment of substance abusers, several areas have been identified which might further enhance TC treatment effectiveness. Two of these, resiliency theory and the role of social work practitioners, are discussed. Resiliency theory provides a framework for re-conceptualizing interventions as they apply to therapeutic communities. Resiliency is explicated and illustrated via a case study of a therapeutic community TROSA (Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers), a non-profit TC in Durham, North Carolina. A number of contributions that social work practitioners can make to TCs are described.     

Social Justice in the Social Work Classroom: Applying a Professional Value to Social Work Education

Social justice is a primary value of social work and therefore has a place in discussions of social work education pedagogy. This is especially true for conversations pertaining to students who are underprepared, due to educational inequalities, for successful completion of writing assignments at the undergraduate level. If underprepared students are treated as equals to prepared students, then the social inequalities that contributed to or caused a student to be underprepared are perpetuated rather than challenged. The authors explore responses to underprepared students that are consistent with social work's professional value of social justice.