Choosing your Clinical Supervisor is an important decision. This therapeutic and professional relationship is widely understood to be the most important ingredient in any successful personal development journey. This working relationship will support you or your employees by underpinning and fostering effective communication and critical thinking, problem-solving, skills development, wellness in work, and the increasing ability to learn to learn, so as to thrive with increased resilience and effectiveness.
That is why I offer a free 30-minute Zoom meeting so we can meet, consider your requirements and expectations of Supervision and see whether we could work well together.
While there is no single or agreed definition of Supervision, at its core, Supervision and Clinical Supervision are a process of professional learning and development. It enables individuals and small teams, whether you’re in the UK or overseas working in-country, to reflect on and develop knowledge, skills, and competence through agreed and regular support from another professional. Supervision is enhanced further through the integration of Therapeutic Coaching and can form part of a company or charity’s EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) in their commitment to their staff wellness.
Supervision can have different forms and functions, and there are a wide variety of terms used depending on your place of work and personal developmental needs. These may include, amongst others:
- Practice / Clinical Supervision aims to support learning and develop competency related to a specific clinical task, ie. those Counselling practitioners in an agency or private practice, or in other caring professions such as the NHS Primary Care services.
- Professional Supervision is primarily focused on identifying professional learning and development needs and CPD, ie. individual, peer-to-peer, or small-team learning and accountability in practice.
- Operational/Line Management Supervision from an objective external professional i.e. Employee Assistance Programmes where we come into your business and help support your Executive, Management, and Staff. To help deal with and navigate personal problems, wellness issues, or conflicts that might adversely impact their work performance, health, and or their well-being.
- In-Country or remote Supervision and Therapeutic Coaching that is objective and comes from a certified and lived-experience professional can make the difference in success or early home return to those working in the developing world helping support in-country projects and working with indigenous pioneers.
In all four of the above examples of Supervision/Clinical Supervision, as your Supervisor, I seek to model talking about and expressing what is happening for you as the Supervisee, in the here-and-now. This gives the opportunity for you to name such things more courageously and use metacommunication (communicating about how we communicate). This helps us all engage in reflective, relational communication in an increasingly effective way whether that be in our home or work life. This process of Supervision is undertaken utilising the Integrative Developmental Model of Supervision and the seven modes/eyes of consideration and evaluation, as shown in the diagram.
Supervision is an essential aspect of continuing professional development and plays a key part in ensuring good practice, high-quality care, work performance, and ongoing support that is objective. At The Trellis Practice, we uniquely incorporate the proven methodology of Self-Organised Learning, a process of helping us all continually learn to learn.
Professionals at all levels of their careers will benefit from Supervision and Coaching as it provides an important opportunity to reflect on their professional work and practice, including what went well, or not so well, and where improvements could be made.
The Trellis Practice also weaves into this process of self-assessment and evaluation, Therapeutic Coaching. This enables the individual to reflect on where they want to get to, and what could hinder this objective. So often it’s elements from our past that we’re unaware of, faulty ways of thinking, doing, or relating that can hinder our forward motion.
Together, we can work on unpacking, discovering, identifying, and resolving, enabling you to thrive while increasing your resilience and joy in all that you do. These sessions can be not only in the ‘room’ but also in nature, through Walking-Talks or online.
Maybe, read some feedback from past and present clients and their comments about the reflective practice of Supervision. If you would like to take me up on the offer of your free 30-minute Zoom conversation, it would be a pleasure to hear from you.