Towards a Consensus of a Competency Framework for Clinical Supervision in Nursing: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Skills

Aim

In the absence of a consensus on what competences are necessary for Clinical Supervision in nursing, this paper presents such a framework on the Knowledge, Attitudes and Skills approach.

Data Sources

Clinical Supervision literature published from 1996 to 2012 was searched using CINAHL, Medline, Psychlit and British Nursing Index followed by a manual scrutiny of relevant text books.

Findings

Our review identified a variety of knowledge, attitudes and skills that have been identified as parts, potentially of a competency ‘framework’.

Discussion

1) The absence of consensus of Clinical Supervision competencies in nursing can be addressed by embracing the Knowledge, Attitude and Skills approach and undertaking an international Delphi study based on this framework; 2) competency models must include attention to the acquisition and/or development of required qualities, 3) it appears that competencies are being advanced for radically different degrees of Clinical Supervisor (and supervisee) preparation/practice.

Keywords::

• clinical supervision
• competence
• conceptual frameworks
• good characteristics
• clinical supervisor
• supervisee
• supervisory relationship

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their most profound thanks and appreciation to Dr. Michael Hoge, Professor and Director of Clinical Training in Psychology, Yale Department of Psychiatry, who directs Yale's Program on Supervision, for his thorough and helpful review, critique, and feedback on the penultimate draft of this article.

Notes

^1. It can also be located in the educational literature of other disciplines such as design and architecture (Bakarman, 2004).

^2. Which has been added to United States Congressional Library (Cutcliffe, Hyrkas, & Fowler, 2010).

^3. And the many fine scholarly works that this original work spawned.

^4. And the authors would argue—safe.

^5. Please see Cutcliffe, Hyrkas, & Fowler, 2010 for a comprehensive review of this evidence.

^6. Interestingly, the authors note this is another quality.