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If you've been qualified for a long time,

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sometimes you get stuck in a rut

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and you think that things that you do,

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it's very difficult to change. There's

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a skill that you kind of, you know,

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you can't really learn in books, um, you know,

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not a textbook or search, but at the same time, you need

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to be given the foundational knowledge of it. Of course,

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very helpful in that it got me thinking on how

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to do things differently, different, uh, things

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that are happening in the world, different things

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that have happened in the social work profession as well.

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And also most importantly, how I could supervise my team

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and make sure that they benefit outside, uh,

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the benefit from the supervisory, uh, process.

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I, um, was on the course with, uh,

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colleagues from other local authorities

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in various different roles,

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and that made for a really rich experience in terms of, um,

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practice and, you know, culture of different organisations

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and, um, just, you know,

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the different ways people approach supervision

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and how that, um, sort

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of manifested. In terms of as an organisation,

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what I can say, um, is we are continuously, um,

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improving on providing, um, reflective supervision.

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And I can see that through our quality assurance processes,

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you know, um, through our practice evaluations

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and staff feedback through our health check.

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Well, what the PSDP [Practice Supervisor Development Programme] helped me

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to focus on really was about three things, about emotions,

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being able to talk about emotions in social work, importance

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of relationships, um, reflection, um, you know, so kind

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of reflexivity, um, and self-reflection.

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And I think the fourth thing was the importance really of,

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of, of keeping the child and the family in mind as well.

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And you do that through the kind

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of the skills you build up in, in terms

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of your reflexive questioning, systemic way of,

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of, of looking at the family.

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Also, I think for me, it gave me an opportunity

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to really reflect on resources

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and tools for managers as well - to have that kind of, um,

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repository or like a toolkit to use, um,

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for times when maybe they might get a little bit stuck in

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supervision, um, or really need to just pull back

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and look at something else just

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to refresh themselves. And maybe...
It

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helped me think about authenticity.

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It helped me sort of understand when I'm stepping in

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and I'm doing too much because I've kind of...

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I'm worried about things,

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so I'm not enabling my managers. I,

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I'm more prepared for my supervision.

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I listen more. I've learned to listen.

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I've learned to focus on what is really important.

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I've learned to focus on the social worker as an individual

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with their own values, with their own fears.

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I've also learned, uh, the impact

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of those fears on decision making.

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So my role I found is to contain them and to listen to them.

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Nothing that they say is, uh, uh,

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should be minimised.

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Everything that they say is really, really important. Our

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staff are saying that they're getting really good quality

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reflective supervision, you know,

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and I think that that is, you know, got to be in part due

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to the, the training offer that the staff, uh,

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that the managers have had that are supporting our staff.

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And fundamentally, you know,

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if our staff are being supported, well, then we're going

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to support children and families well.

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And we'll have good outcomes for children.