Why external social work supervision is good for practice.

I’ll keep this brief as all my blog posts because we are busy busy people that hardly ever take the time to breathe let alone grab a coffee or tea and chat with our colleagues.

Social work supervision is important to help us process the trauma’s and difficulties of our jobs. External social work supervision provides a safe space from outside the organisation we work in to critically reflect on our practice. It supports us to stay in an emotionally demanding environment.

When I leave the office at the end of the day, I am not frustrated from lack of caring, but of caring and not having the resources, skills, training, time to be able to give the job the attention that it deserves and therefore I’m not able to give the people that I work with the attention they deserve.

And when something hits you hard, like a child being drugged and sexually assaulted, a home for a teenager with carers of 12+ years breaking down, a parent using violence in their relationship, it makes me question why I do the job I do.

I do social work, because I love working with people. The potential, the change, the capabilities, the essence of what makes us human. But this is also the hard part of social work, because we can see the possibilities.

Good supervision, where we can reflect on values, responsibilities, theories, and wider societal and organisational influences, supports us to be able to walk in the door at home and know we did the best we could that day.

Supportive, collaborative supervision is important to help us walk back through the door the next day with a cup that is relatively full and a plan. A critically reflective safe space to do this is essential.

So, what’s been your experience of supervision in social work? Is it something you relish or something you avoid?