Guidelines For Supervisors Research Articles

Race in Supervision: Let's Talk About It.

Addressing race and racial trauma within psychotherapy supervision is increasingly important in psychiatry training. A therapist's ability to discuss race and racial trauma in psychotherapy supervision increases the likelihood that these topics will be explored as they arise in the therapeutic setting. The authors discuss the contextual and sociocultural dynamics that contributed to their own avoidance of race and racial trauma within the supervisory relationship. The authors examine the features that eventually led to a robust discussion of race and culture within the supervisory setting and identify salient themes that occurred during three phases of the conversation about race: pre-dialogue, the conversation, and after the conversation. These themes include building an alliance, supercompetence, avoidance, shared vulnerability, "if I speak on this, I own it," closeness versus distance, and speaking up. This article reviews the key literature in the field of psychiatry and psychology that has shaped how we understand race and racial trauma and concludes with guidelines for supervisors on how to facilitate talking about race in supervision.

The voice of the external examiner in master's dissertations

This article reflects on an investigation conducted at the College of Education at the University of South Africa (Unisa). The article looks into the examination reports on dissertations of a number of master's students, with the aim of improving supervision of dissertations. The question underpinning the research was as follows: According to the examination reports: 'What are the scholarly expectations that external examiners have of a dissertation?' The examination reports were analysed in a qualitative interpretive research inquiry using the themes provided by Unisa, namely: exposition of the topic of research, theory, empirical investigation, conclusion and recommendations, and language and editing. The findings were used to develop guidelines for supervisors and students, and the latter may use them when writing a master's dissertation, as the findings may contribute to a passable dissertation.

Personal issues in supervision and personal development of trainees: guidelines for supervisors

Personal issues in supervision and personal development of trainees: guidelines for supervisors

In Pursuit of a Missing Link:

This paper reports results of an exploratory study of a child welfare training project in work with involuntary clients. During this project social workers and supervisors from three public agencies were trained in a collaborative practice model. The study attempted to identify connections between supervisors' activities and practitioners' initial engagement with clients. Findings indicated that trainees gained understanding and skills in working with involuntary clients whether or not their supervisors also participated in the training. A supervisor's skills or participant's skills in using supervision seemed to have more influence than presence of the supervisor in the project. Guidelines for supervisors are offered.

Personal Counseling for Counselors in Training: Guidelines for Supervisors

Personal counseling is a valuable growth experience for counselors in training. The authors provide a decision tree and guidelines for the supervisor's use in recommending personal counseling.

Coping with accountability and evaluation: Some guidelines for supervisors of direct service staff

In an age of increasing demands for professionalism and consumer accountability, social service agencies must rely heavily on competent evaluation of direct interventive services to provide empirical and verifiable data on client outcomes and program impact. Since the individual front line staff member is primarily responsible for evaluation of interventions, the supervisory role emerges as a critical factor to insure the competence and accuracy of this self-assessment. This discussion, therefore, provides basic guidelines for supervisors to assess the evaluative competence of staff and offers specific suggestions about what questions to ask and how to explore staff's motivations and methods of self-assessment.

Coping with Accountability: Guidelines for Supervisors

The supervisory role is critical in ensuring that data on client outcomes and overall program impact are interpreted correctly for the agency by its direct service workers. Guidelines are offered to help supervisors assess and improve the evaluative competence and the methods of accountability used by their subordinates.