External Supervision in Social Work: Power, Space, Risk, and the Search for Safety

Abstract

Over the past few decades there has been a trend to separate “clinical” or “professional” supervision of social workers from “line” supervision provided in social services. Professional or clinical supervision is often sourced externally through a private arrangement or contracted out by agencies to individual practitioners of supervision. A number of factors underpin the development of this external supervision including: the perceived imposition of managerial agendas on supervision; the problem of power dynamics within organisations; and a growing “risk” conceptualisation of practitioners’ wellbeing. A potential negative impact of this separation of supervision from the “field” of practice is that it privatises supervision in a manner that in itself poses risks. This exploratory paper examines the impact of discourses of risk and safety, space and place within social work supervision and draws links between these aspects. Some material drawn from a small qualitative study of the experiences of six expert supervisors in New Zealand illuminates these themes. A significant finding was that the dominance of compliance and surveillance activities within the public sector was linked to the pursuit of external supervision and that four dominant forms of supervision can be discerned in the current discourse.

Keywords:

• Social Work Supervision
• Social Work Practice
• Neoliberalism

Notes

¹Paper accepted under the editorship of Professor Christine Bigby and Dr Jane Maidment.

¹Pseudonyms are used throughout the paper to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned.