Simulating supervision: How do managers respond to a crisis?

ABSTRACT

Supervision is fundamental to child and family social work practice, in England as elsewhere, yet there is little research regarding what managers and social workers do when they meet to discuss the families they are working with. Recent years have seen a growing interest in the use of simulated clients and objective structured clinical exams to help develop and evaluate the abilities of social workers and students. This paper describes a study of 30 simulated supervision sessions between English social work managers and an actor playing the role of a student social worker in need of support. The simulation concerns a referral regarding an incident of domestic abuse. During the simulations, managers typically asked closed questions to obtain more information before providing solutions for the supervisee in the form of advice and direction. There was little evidence of emotional support for the social worker, nor empathy with the family. Managers typically acted as expert problem-solvers. The implications of this are discussed in relation to current theoretical models of supervision for child and family social work and in relation to how children’s services responds to domestic abuse.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision
• child protection
• communications skills
• domestic abuse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David Wilkins is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tilda Goldberg Centre for Social Work and Social Care at the University of Bedfordshire. Prior to joining the centre, David worked as a Senior Lecturer for Anglia Ruskin University, as a Practice Tutor for Frontline and as a social work practitioner, manager and Principal Child and Family Social Worker. David’s research interests include social work supervision and how different forms and types of supervision support practice and inform outcomes. He has recently published papers on what happens in child and family supervision and the use of attachment theory in child protection assessment work.

Rebecca Jones is a Research Assistant at the Tilda Goldberg Centre for Social Work and Social Care at the University of Bedfordshire. Her background is in adoption and fostering research. Prior to joining the centre she worked in research and policy at the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Rebecca’s research interests include communication skills in social work and Motivational Interviewing. She has recently published papers on measuring practice skills and the use of interpreters in child and family social work.

ORCID

David Wilkins http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2780-0385