The patchy landscape of supervision for child protection professionals in Albania

ABSTRACT

To provide a snapshot of the state of child protection supervision in Albania, this article presents findings from a small-scale study undertaken to explore the views and experiences of professionals in multidisciplinary child protection teams. Our aims were to provide a description of current supervisory practice and explore perceptions and experiences of supervision. Data were collected via five key informant interviews and surveys completed by 17 frontline workers. We found a patchy landscape of understanding and provision of supervision in Albania.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision
• multidisciplinary
• children
• families
• child protection
• social work
• Albania

Acknowledgments

This research was conducted by the Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE), part of Cardiff University, and within the framework of the Child Protection Hub project, funded by the Austrian Development Agency and Oak Foundation. All views expressed in the report are that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the above-mentioned donors. Cascade receives infrastructure funding from Health and Care Research Wales.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Austrian Development Agency and Oak Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Izela Tahsini

Izela Tahsini is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Policy, the University of Tirana, Albania. Her research focuses on social services, child protection, and gender issues. She has been collaborating as an expert, locally and internationally, in these fields of interest.

David Wilkins

Dr David Wilkins is a Reader in Social Work at Cardiff University and a lecturer and tutor on the MA Social Work programme. His research focuses on professional supervision in child and family social work, how judgement and decision-making can be supported via supervision, and on the evaluation of social work judgement in relation to accuracy.