Articles

New resource on social work field education

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 21:17:00 GMT

I would like to share the link to a recently published book on student social work placements - Field Education: Creating Successful Placements, edited by Fiona Gardner, Jacqui Theobald, Natasha Long, Helen Hickson. This book offers a wide range of perspectives on the whole process of social work field education, from practical tips on how to provide supervision or to make the most of being on placement, to broader reflection on the many elements that make up successful student placements. The text has chapters from social work university lecturers and university liaison staff, from placement supervisors, external supervisors and also from students themselves. I had the opportunity to write a chapter for this book Providing Effective External Supervision Using Technology, which reflected on my own experiences and ideas of providing external supervision via Skype, to social work students in rural settings. I really enjoyed reading through the other writer’s contributions, noticing where we were in agreement and where we may have had different ideas or ways of doing things. I particularly enjoyed the chapters written by the students themselves, which gave an important perspective on what they valued and learned most from.

I have included a link to the book. I don’t profit from any sales but I have found it to be a very useful collection of writings, which I highly recommend to social workers in the field, as well as to students who are going on placement.

https://www.oup.com.au/books/higher-education/health,-nursing-and-social-work/9780190310059-field-education

Model for clinical group supervision

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 03:33:00 GMT

I have been providing group supervision for over 15 years now, to social workers, counsellors, welfare staff and other allied health workers within the welfare field. Recently, I have reflected on how my practice has changed over time and the experiences that have informed why I work the way I do. Not only have I developed knowledge and confidence in the process of facilitating group supervision but I am now far clearer about what I offer and can clearly articulate how I work. The model I now use is one I have developed in the past few years. This model aims to balance spontaneity and responsiveness to what the group brings, with enough structure for the group to feel contained and purposeful.

Documenting this model has been a helpful process, crystallising my own thoughts about my purpose and structure and creating useful information to give out to new group members. The idea of group supervision often raises anxiety in practitioners and many workers have stories of supervision groups they have attended, where they have felt embarrassed, annoyed or even shamed. When I have my initial session with a new group, I spend time exploring both what they hope for and what they are fearful of from group supervision. In this way, we begin to negotiate our way forward together, using my model as the starting point and then developing individualised aims, agreements and rules to suit each group. This model aims to minimise worker anxiety about presenting their dilemmas in the group and to create trust that I will hold the frame and keep things safe. In the groups I facilitate, I am clear from the beginning that we will focus less deeply on the crossover between personal and professional, than we would within one-to-one supervision. Members can individually choose how much they wish to share but I will also take responsibility for their boundaries being protected. In this way, group members can safely benefit from the amazing opportunities the group supervision process allows - a multiplicity of ideas, experiences, reflections and new thoughts that inform and support the individual presenters and the group as a whole.

If you would like a copy of the group supervision model I use, you can download here.

If you have any questions or would like to talk more about this, please email me via my website or directly to lisa.derham@bigpond.com

You are not really making toast!

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 02:54:00 GMT

To be purposeful in the guise of aimless “hanging out” is a complex and unusual skill – not easy to learn but easy to underestimate.

Having provided group supervision to workers in drop-in centres for over twelve years, I have developed a strong respect for the complexity of this work. Not everyone has the ability to build a warm connection with someone, whilst simultaneously monitoring the rest of the space for anyone else in need and keeping an eye out for brewing unrest or other dynamics that may compromise client or worker safety.

The main tasks of a drop-in centre tend to include providing a safe and welcoming place that offers information and support, whilst fostering social connection and inclusion. The achievement of this broad aim relies heavily on the solid relationships and the trust that staff build with their client base, often over long periods of time.

In a drop-in centre, staff members never know what to expect next. On any given day, you cannot know who will come in to the centre, how they will be feeling that day or if they are going to just pop in for a minute or stay all day. Within this frame, staff respond to client needs as they arise, remaining emotionally present for their clients and still always ready for the next person or situation.

In this context, relationship building often occurs while other tasks are also being performed – unpacking a dishwasher, setting up a space for a group or just playing pool.

While attempting to balance all of this, it is not unusual for the genuine achievements of these workers to be unseen or for their skills to be diminished, sometimes even by the service users themselves. “Your job is to make me some toast and refill the Milo tin – anyone can do it!” is a common example of how this complex balancing of task and purpose can be misunderstood and thereby reduced to the mundane.

Recognising this dichotomy has been a key learning for me as a supervisor. Part of my role as supervisor has been to encourage and support workers to name the complexities of what they do, ensuring it is acknowledged, seen and appreciated, at least by themselves. This assists drop-in workers to maintain their focus and to acknowledge both the many tasks and also the meaning of what they are doing, rather than beginning to feel reduced or diminished by a simplistic assessment of a multi-faceted role.

Building in regular time for reflection is another way for workers to sustain themselves in drop-in work. This needs to be a time that is quarantined from multi-tasking or reacting to crisis. Reflection time enables workers to slow down and begin to notice what they have been doing. By actively naming a challenge they have negotiated well or acknowledging their part in a positive change for a client, workers can remind themselves of the purpose and meaning of the work they are doing. Creating these types of opportunities to notice and then to share these experiences with other team members can be powerful in sustaining drop-in staff in this type of work.

It has been a privilege to witness and to develop a greater understanding of the variety and depth of work that can take place in the drop-in context; purposeful, solid, relationship-based work that is often not seen or valued as much as it deserves to be.

Five things I learned providing online supervision via Skype

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 04:01:00 GMT

Providing clinical supervision to social workers, counsellors and welfare workers in rural and remote areas has become an increasingly large portion of my work in the past few years.

As technology has improved and people become more comfortable using computers to facilitate their everyday discussions, more social workers and other allied health professionals are choosing to seek out remote access supervision and support. Not only for workers who are professionally isolated, I have found that a number of workers are choosing a supervisor who is closely aligned with their own discipline, mode of practice or their speciality, whether or not the supervisor is actually in close physical proximity.

This increased comfort with remote access supervision has enabled me to build strong and supportive working relationships with professionals across Australia, as well as some close to home who just prefer not to travel.

Some of the things I have learned in the last few years:

· Visual images are way better than sound alone. In the beginning, I was open to phone or Skype, trying to be flexible to the needs of my supervisees. While I think flexibility is important, I have increasingly aimed to balance this with an on-going focus on what is a good enough service. Telephone supervision, without the aid of a visual image or occasional face-to-face contact, is a useful fallback position but it is best not to be the entire service.

Having worked with people in both modalities, I have come to believe that a visual image, even if imperfect, offers many aids to the building and maintenance of the supervisory relationship. As with any relationship, this is particularly important in the initial stages of working together, when trust and a shared understanding has not yet grown.

· Have a phone with a really good phone plan as a back-up, in case the technology falls in a heap suddenly. Worrying about how much credit you have left doesn’t help you to be focused and reflective as a supervisor.

· Protect your work space from distraction and encourage your supervisee to do the same thing, even if the “Skype work space” is from home - it is hard to maintain your professional stance when your pet jumps on you without warning.

· With focus and preparation, really good supervision can occur via Skype, even when a cyclone is occurring in the background!

· Be precise with appointment times - different time zones and daylight savings variations within Australia can make things tricky.

What other things have you learnt providing or receiving online or remote supervision? You can contact me via my website if you would like to share ideas on this. If you would like to know more about receiving online supervision, please email me at lisa.derham@bigpond.com or ring me on 0402 759 286.

Safety tips for working with challenging clients

Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:19:42 GMT

Safety is an important issue in every work place but it is not something that all workers and students in the welfare sector hold at the front of their minds. While we all want to think the best of people, there are times when things go wrong, where we encounter angry or distressed people and when we feel scared or unsafe.

Based on my experiences of working in the welfare sector and from my role providing clinical supervision, I have generated my own list of important points for helping to stay safe.

· Develop a clear and specific plan about happens in an emergency. This may include:

o Knowing how you alert others if there is a problem

o Knowing who will do what to help resolve this

o Ensuring that everyone is aware of the plan

o Ensuring that everyone has agreed to and is comfortable with their expected role.

· Be aware of your own environment and modify this so it works for you. Examples include:

o Sit nearest to the door or have a second exit from your room so you are not trapped.

o Make sure there are no items on your desk that can be used to harm you e.g. keep scissors in a drawer out of sight, rather than in a cup on your desk.

o Arrange communal kitchens in the same way, large knives out of sight, rather than in a knife block on the bench.

o If you are calming someone who is angry and you offer them a cup of tea or coffee, make sure it is not hot enough to harm you if it is thrown at you.

· Keep safety in mind when deciding what to wear. For instance:

o Dangly earrings can be yanked out of your ears.

o Scarves arranged in a slip knot around your neck can become a noose when pulled.

o High heels can make it hard to run away fast.

I’d love to hear from others about your own tips for ensuring you and your work place is safer.

This information is part of the Managing Challenging Client Behaviours training that I have developed and run for workers and volunteers in the welfare sector. The training particularly focuses on providing information and skills for the workers who regularly encounter difficult client behaviours but for whom this is not their main role or training e.g. neighbourhood house staff, reception staff, community educators, a range of volunteer roles. A brochure about this training can be downloaded from my website.

Reflecting on your first job: session for newer social workers (AASW Vic branch event)

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 11:36:00 GMT

It is great to announce that the Reflecting on your first job session that I organise and present for the Victorian branch of the AASW will be happening again in September. The session is aimed at 2012 social work graduates and other newer workers. We discuss some of the issues that can arise in adapting to working full time as a social work professional (successful inventions and learning, as well as managing stress, avoiding burnout, clearly establishing work/home boundaries and developing your social work identity.) We reflect with the group on some of our own experiences, as we began our social work careers and we allow lots of time for the group to share their own stories, find out about each others’ experiences and discuss this within small groups and the larger group.

My own experience was that the first year was a very steep learning curve, overwhelming at times, as well as a wonderful opportunity to learn and to practice all the things I was taught in my course. Based on this, on colleagues’ experiences and from my work as a clinical supervisor, the messages I hope to pass on to those attending this session are:

· To normalise the wide range of situations and reactions that newer workers can experience.

· To actively encourage newer workers to trust their own instincts, particularly in relation to their own safety, emotional well-being and support needs.

· To flag the concept of vicarious trauma in the workplace.

· To proactively monitor your own stress levels and to feel confident in seeking assistance before this is too high.

In presenting this session, I will be assisted by a 2011 social work graduate, Leanda Bunn. She attended this session last year as a participant. She then spoke herself at the 2012 Finding your first job and thriving in it presentation. I am looking forward to working with her again and hearing her reflect on her own experiences in the workplace.

Date: 19^th September

Time: 6.30pm to 8.00pm

Venue: AASW office,

Level 7
14-20 Blackwood Street
NORTH MELBOURNE 3051

RSVP to email: aaswvic@aasw.asn.au or email me with questions at: lisa.derham@bigpond.com

Registered ACA Supervisor and a couple of great supervision resources

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 10:56:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that I have now joined the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) - as a registered supervisor through the ACA’s College of Supervision and also as a Level 4 counsellor. I have provided individual and group supervision to a whole range of professionals for over ten years now – social workers, counsellors, welfare workers, youth workers, needle syringe program workers and allied health staff to name a few. This new registration means that I can also provide clinical supervision to the counsellors who are ACA members – all of whom are required to have a minimum of 10 hours of supervision per year with an ACA registered supervisor as part of their membership commitment.

I have been really impressed with the ACA’s policy document for professional supervision. It offers lots of detail about what is clinical supervision, the very good reasons for receiving regular, reflective supervision and what good supervision may include. It is a great resource to inform newer workers about supervision and to encourage them to really value what good supervision can offer.

Another great new resource for newer workers is a booklet which was launched recently. I was lucky enough to be sent a free copy of it and I found it really good. It is called: You deserve good supervision! A guide for supervisees and is written by Margaret Morrell from Vibrant Training. It is clear and specific about what good supervision looks and feels like and gives clear steps on how to negotiate the supervision you need. There is a great section on planning for and reflecting on supervision, rather than just turning up and hoping it will be useful. Another thing I like about this booklet is how it normalises the fact that supervision is a necessary part on on-going reflective practice, not just a student tool.

Both of these resources can be found online, the policy on the ACA website and the booklet through Vibrant Training.

Meeting up at the AASW Rural and Remote conference

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 04:47:51 GMT

I’ve just booked into the National Rural and Remote Social Work conference which is being held at Inverloch in July. Having enjoyed the last one in 2011, I am really looking forward to this one.

There are a few presentations on my own area – supervision, which I am very keen to attend. Two areas I have an interest in – the provision of supervision to allied health and non-clinical staff and the provision of clinical supervision via Skype or telephone, feature in a number of the concurrent sessions. I am eager to hear others’ experiences of these areas.

Some of the sessions I am planning to attend include:

· “How a social work supervision model can support community nurses”

· “Online counselling and practice: email, chat and video: security, ethics, what is involved and how it can be done effectively.”

· “The challenges and opportunities of technology: An examination of the uses of Skype and Phone Supervision with Remote and Rural Practitioners.”

· “The supportive network: Technology and Rural Social Work Practice.”

When I undertake remote based supervision, I encourage, where possible, a face-to-face meeting as a way of beginning to build the relationship. Having met face-to-face helps facilitate the important step of building a trusting relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. The rural conference is a good opportunity for potential supervisees to meet me and for us to get to know each other a bit, in a no-strings-attached way!

One of my other roles is as an editor of the AASW Victorian Branch’s Social Work Connect. Through the Social Work Connect, I have the opportunity to liaise with lots of people who are working in rural or remote social work. I also provide supervision remotely to a number of social workers. This conference will be a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with people who I have so far connected with via telephone, Skype or email.

The Social Work Connect will also be a great vehicle to report back on the conference. We are hoping to showcase some of the great presentations and workshops that take place. We will be soliciting those attending to send us in short reports of their experiences at the conference, as well as lots of colourful photos!

I am hoping to meet some of you there.

AASW New grad employment presentation online

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:00:00 GMT

I am really pleased to be announcing that the AASW Victorian branch’s annual session for new social work graduates Finding your first job and thriving in it is available online for new graduates who can’t come to our live session in the Melbourne CBD.

It is available through the AASW website http://www.aasw.asn.au/whoweare/victorian/new-graduates

Rural and remote access to training is an on-going struggle. I regularly receive queries from people who can’t make it to the new graduate training sessions that the AASW Victorian branch runs in Melbourne but who are keen to receive the information we are providing. Increasing access to support and training for newer workers in rural and remote areas is important. Technology is helping to make this easier, whether it is supervision and support sessions via Skype or on-line presentations, such as this one.

The Finding your first job segment that has just been made available, offers insights about job seeking from two experienced social workers - Maria Groner and Glenda Kerridge. I have really appreciated their expertise and support in this project! Glenda and Maria speak about the whole process of seeking, preparing for and obtaining your first social work job, based on their experiences as employers and as employees.

The Thriving in it segment, which I present, looks at afterwards - what happens when you get your first job and begin to settle in. This is an area I am really passionate about and I believe that your experience in your first job and your first year has a strong impact on how you develop as a social worker. From my own and my supervisees experiences, I am aware that many things can be overwhelming in your first job. I am really keen for new workers to go away from watching this segment with some ideas of how to maintain their well-being in the workplace. This section names and normalises some common experiences for new graduates in their first year of work. It flags some safety issues, looks at self care, developing a work/home balance and discusses the importance of monitoring your own well-being and seeking support where needed.

I hope that new social work graduates who can’t make the next live Finding your first job and thriving in it session in November will be able to benefit from these online presentations.

Clinical Supervision in the Alcohol and Other Drug sector

Sun, 26 May 2013 10:25:00 GMT

Clinical supervision, staff support and solid self-care routines are integral for all staff who work in the Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) service sector. This is true both for therapeutic staff and those in related frontline roles, such as needle syringe program (NSP) workers, allied health staff and receptionists.

Helping people can be stressful and leave workers feeling anxious or exhausted. In the AOD service sector, at any one time, a number of the clients will be in crisis, stressed, traumatised or hanging out, perhaps homeless or experiencing mental health problems. This can result in frontline workers beginning to parallel these moods, ending up feeling stressed, anxious or out of control as well. Anecdotally, through the workers that I supervise, I am hearing that the rise in methamphetamine use, with its complications of increased client agitation and aggression, has intensified some of the negative impacts on workers in the field. With difficult situations occurring more commonly in the workplace, it is even more likely that the impact will spill over from work life to home life. This can make it hard for workers to relax and feel safe and harder to recharge and to continue looking forward to being at work.

The passionate commitment many workers show towards this important and sometimes difficult work makes me feel very strongly that they deserve the opportunity to be listened to and coached to value their own needs and to know how to monitor and maintain their own self-care.

There are many benefits that come from acknowledging the high emotional impact on staff working within the AOD service sector and providing them with supervision and other supports. These benefits include increased staff morale, renewed energy to be genuinely supportive of clients and a reduction in worker burnout. Further, helping workers to enhance their understanding of the broader context in which AOD clients fit within the community increases their capacity to empathise with their clients whether or not they share similar life experiences, backgrounds or values.

In my current role as clinical supervisor, I have come to recognise the importance for frontline staff of being able to acknowledge the impact this type of work can have on them, the costs of being up-close to people who are anxious, confused, angry and occasionally, scary. Developing ways for staff to talk about the on-going stresses of their work, to let go of the sad or disturbing things they occasionally encounter and to improve their well-being in the workplace goes a long way towards maintaining a stable, happy and committed workforce.

I have put together some suggestions on ways to support frontline workers in the AOD sector:

1. The acknowledgement and recognition of staff contributions in a meaningful, ongoing way.

2. The provision of a regular facilitated session for frontline teams to share information, support each other and develop new skills.

3. Offering options for one-to-one support or debriefing in situations that an individual worker identifies as distressing.

What is termed distressing is something that can vary depending on the person, their prior experience, their own mood, their expectations of the role and even their expectations of that particular client. It can be upsetting and shocking if someone we expect to be friendly or polite, is suddenly rude or threatening, even if we would handle that behaviour from someone else without much fuss!

4. Individual workers can learn to monitor their own moods, their body’s reactions and their own patterns at home – e.g. sleeping disturbances, changed eating patterns, thinking or worrying about work more than normal, while at home. Noticing changes can help you to determine when and if you need extra support.

5. Team up with a colleague – help to monitor each other’s moods, reactions and patterns. After a particularly hard day, arrange to check back in with each other in a few days time. Are you feeling alright now or do you need some support?

6. As a team, agree not to minimise distressing situations – being stoic doesn’t fit with self-care. Modelling positive strategies for self-care and asking for help when you need it, can help for this to become an integral part of your work practice.

7. Look for training that can help you with these things.

Some positive examples of Melbourne organisations acting to support their staff include:

· North Yarra Community Health, who has employed me to provide group supervision and support to its Innerspace Drug Safety Services teams for the past eleven years and recently, began to provide the same service to their reception team and NSP staff.

· North Richmond Community Health who have employed me to run group supervision for their reception and interpreting team for the last ten years.

Both organisations and workers report high levels of satisfaction with this on-going arrangement which is responsive to worker needs and encourages the normalisation of self-care and staff well-being in the workplace. Having a pre-existing relationship with these staff also results in more effective debriefing in crisis situations.

The Benefits of Clinical Supervision

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:18:00 GMT

I have been providing group and individual clinical supervision for over ten years. It is quite common for people to ask me about the benefits of engaging in supervision themselves or of arranging it for their staff. Often, supervision is seen as a bit of an indulgence or something that you only need when something is wrong, rather than an integral part of our practice in any client-centred role. While counsellors and case managers commonly receive supervision, I have found that other workers who provide direct service to clients, for instance, allied health staff, receptionists or teachers) also benefit from regular clinical supervision. Here is a summary of what I have found to be the positives of supervision for individuals, for groups and for the employing organisations.

The positives for individuals:

· Individuals have a dedicated time and space where they can focus on their own self care to maximise their on-going well-being and to decrease the likelihood of issues such as burnout and vicarious trauma.

· Supervision offers the opportunity to develop new skills and a place to identify on-going training needs.

· Supervision offers a safe environment to think through client and other work related issues and to reach some resolution in how to deal with the issues.

· Individuals develop new insights into their work.

· Supervision is a supportive place to help manage work-related stress and anxiety, including the stress generated from day-to-day contact with complex, difficult or distressing clients.

· Supervision allows workers to increase and development their capacity to reflect on clients, client issues. It is a safe place to think about the crossover between the worker’s personal issues and the client relationship.

· Workers can increase, develop and expand on their therapeutic skills and on their client work in the “here and now”.

The positives of group supervision:

- Within an organisational context - group supervision can create an opportunity for staff to share strategies and ideas for interventions and to learn from each other in a supported environment.

· By team members discussing the types of things that bother them or stress them, it can help staff to feel less isolated, to realise that others are experiencing similar issues to them and to allow the whole team to develop ways to combat these issues.

- In an individual context- if newer social or welfare workers band together with like-minded others to purchase small group supervision, this can be a cost effective way for them to get a taste of supervision and to gain support from the supervisor and from each other.

The positives for organisations:

· Good supervision enhances client services and client outcomes.

· Increased retention of staff and increased staff morale and well-being is a result of providing staff with additional support, including external supervision. This improves their day-to-day experience within an organisation, thus minimising stress and burnout among staff.

· External supervision commonly decreases pressure on Management staff, as a number of staff support and debriefing needs are met by their external supervisor.

· Supervision can be an important tool in aiding staff to identify skills they lack, to aid them in developing new skills and in staff coping better in their work place.

· Regular clinical supervision minimises on-going problems for staff, such as staff struggling aversely from vicarious traumatisation in the workplace.

Increasing EAP effectiveness through existing relationships

Tue, 14 May 2013 01:19:00 GMT

Employee Assistance Program (EAP) sessions (one-off or short term counselling to workers within their organisation) appear to be much more effective where there is already a solid, trusting relationship between the staff member and the EAP counsellor. An essential component of any counselling is a positive relationship between the client and the counsellor. Openness and honesty about often painful or distressing issues, requires first of all, that the client feels safe and respected and trusts the counsellor.

I have a long-term relationship with a number of welfare organisations. I am connected to them but remain independent. These organisations employ me to supply their staff with on-going group supervision to help them to better manage the personal impact of complex and demanding client-related work. While the main purpose of these sessions is staff support and skill development, I have begun to see an important secondary benefit both for me and for the organisations I work with.

By spending regular, purposeful time with these staff groups I get to know the way the organisation works, I become acquainted with many of the staff and they get to know me. By the time one of these workers requires individual counselling about their work or personal life, I have an existing knowledge of them, of their beliefs and capacities and how they may engage in the counselling process. In the same way, the staff member already knows how I work, how I communicate and most importantly, whether I am reliable and trustworthy.

When these workers come to see me, they generally have a positive warm-up towards the idea of counselling before they arrive and they already have some idea of what to expect. From their prior experience of me personally, as group facilitator, they know exactly what will remain confidential and they know that I can be trusted to respect these boundaries and to tell them up front about any reporting requirements or limits to confidentiality. As a result, we can immediately start working on the actual issue they have come about, rather than spending time scoping each other out.

Once we are working together on the identified problem, my prior knowledge of the individual assists the counselling process to go deeper, in a relatively short period of time. This means that I can challenge them, gently and respectfully, and the client is comfortable with this. This is both because they trust our relationship and because my challenging is based on the evidence of what I know and have seen over time, not just on what they have told me. Substantial shifts can occur, resulting in their increased well-being and in their restored functioning back at work. Our prior relationship also allows me to explore and test out the dynamics and concerns relating to the individual in the context of their organisation, based on a genuine knowledge of these often complex dynamics.

I am not suggesting that these individuals would not also work well with another counsellor, only that when they come to see me, an essential building block of effective counselling is already there. This has resulted in an improved service to the individuals involved and to their employers. Generally, fewer sessions are required and their issues are addressed more deeply and more comprehensively than would otherwise have been possible. What I am seeing is that, in addition to the well-documented benefits of group supervision, there is an unintended but substantial benefit of increased effectiveness of EAP, when this is provided by the same person.

Building supervision relationships via phone and Skype

Tue, 14 May 2013 01:07:00 GMT

What is clinical supervision? Basically, it is about well-being – the well-being of the worker receiving supervision and the well-being of their clients. The other essential element for effective clinical supervision is the development of a strong, trusting and honest relationship, between supervisor and supervisee. Building and maintaining this relationship can still be possible when supervisors are geographically distant through thoughtful use of technology.

At times telephone contact is the only option. This can work, particularly if there is at least one face-to-face meeting early on to begin the crucial step of relationship building. One way to get the most out of supervision without visual cues can be as simple as taking the time to really double check what is being said. Actively explaining long pauses in the conversation, such as “I wasn’t speaking for a moment because I was just thinking about...” or asking someone to describe their physical reaction, e.g. “If I were looking at you now, what would I see? Are your shoulders tensed up?” are great ways to compensate for the lack of cues to body language.

Skype with video makes clinical supervision even more effective, particularly while still forming the essential supervision relationship. Body language enhances communication as well as ensuring everyone is paying attention. It can sometimes to be a relief to know that your supervisee or supervisor is listening, not secretly eating their lunch or checking their emails!

It can also take some time to get used to little things, such as the way the placement of cameras on the top of a laptop results in the appearance of the other person looking down, even when they are actually looking at your image on the middle of the screen.

Where there is a commitment to honest communication and a true desire to create a supportive connection between two workers, really positive and effective clinical supervision can take place – despite lack of physical proximity or glitches in technology.

This article first appeared in TSU Connections – Easter 2013, the newsletter for the Training Support Unit for Aboriginal Mothers, Babies and Children.