Professional Supervision
Approach
Wendy’s approach with Professional Supervision is to carefully listen to what the person wants to achieve in the first session and to allow plenty of time to get to know each other. There is also plenty of time for questions about the process.
Wendy make sure that the level of confidentiality is clear and agreed. Clients are encouraged to set some clear professional and personal goals in the form of a written learning contract following the initial session.
These should relate to their specific job, professional practice and learning development, but might also relate to their broader life and career goals. These act as a back-drop for the individual supervision sessions with the client.
Initial session
During the initial session it is clarified whether anyone else will have access to any of the information arising from the process. This is sometimes required where organisations are contracting for Supervision or professional bodies require verification of the process being undertaken.
The nature of the communicated information will always be agreed with the supervisee prior to any communication with a third party.
What the session looks like
Within each session Wendy will always open with a general question about how the supervisee is and how they would like to use the time within the session.
Sometimes the nature of response in this introduction guides how the time needs to be spent but otherwise it is a quick way of checking the supervisee’s general mood and needs for the session.
Near the beginning of each session Wendy will remind the supervisee of the set of Actions that were agreed at the end of the previous supervision session and/or the summary of the key topics that were covered.
This acts as a prompt to revisit the actions for a progress update or to comment on how the discussion topic has been used since the last session.
Once the approximate agenda and the order of the items to discuss has been agreed, Wendy utilizes an active listening mode while the client talks through their issues. Wendy will ask clarifying questions and probe if more information is needed to properly understand what is being communicated.
She provides summaries at key points regarding what is being heard to test understanding and refocus discussion. Once all the information is clear, Wendy might make some observations or ask some additional questions about possible approaches or actions that they might make. Sometimes suggestions will be made regarding a resource, an introduction to a person or a suggestion about an exercise that might be useful. Quite often a reflective question might arise.
Occasionally Wendy will provide an observation about what she is hearing the supervisee say, or not say, or their emotional response to an issue. This might include reflection on previous actions or comments from earlier sessions.
Wendy is open to conversations that move in the direction of reflection about the supervisee’s actions, behaviour and responses to situations and the insights that they might be gaining about these including implications for their future professional practice.
She is seeking movement wherever possible in the direction of transformational learning. Opportunities for the supervisee to reflect on experiences in changes of thought, belief and behaviour are encouraged.
Wendy takes responsibility for managing the time and ensuring that the agreed issues have time to be explored as well as drawing conversations to a conclusion at appropriate points. Towards the end of each session Wendy draws attention to this and asks the client to form some agreed Actions for them to work on between sessions.
Records will be destroyed following a period of 5 years after the supervision has ceased. Arrangements to destroy all of these records as part of winding up WJQuinn Consulting have been made including upon death of the Supervisor.