Supervision

Supervision helps professionals to excel in their work

Supervision is for all professionals working with people for example counsellors, therapists, teachers, support workers, trainers, managers...

Supervision needs to hold you safe when you doubt, offering solutions when needed, to challenge your case work so you know how to be the best for your clients/team/members/costumors, and offering theoretical and practical learning to find new ways to develop further.

For me supervision does not mean only working or talking. In order to find new ways to work with people, we need to engage the creative and non-analytical side of our brain. Therefore I incorporate creative and expressive art medias, embodied therapy, mindfulness as well as breathing and meditation and gestalt methods into my supervision work. It has to be proven to be very effective in the supervision process and will enlighten the relationship you have built with your client.

'Supervision is an opportunity to reflect on how you relate to a client, to benefit from the perspective of another therapeutic professional (the supervisor) and thereby help you improve the value you are providing to your clients. As in the publishing process where the quality of scientific literature is undoubtedly better with the positive influence of the peer review process so too is the quality of counselling much improved through ongoing supervision.'

I offer supervision in Shrewsbury, Chester and Oswestry or online. You are welcome to have a free introductory meeting face to face or online to find out if we would like to work together.

About me:

I have been working as a supervisor since May 2012 after successfully completing the supervisor course for Cruse Bereavement Care, accredited by Aventis in July '12.

I studied counselling from 2005 in the UK and have worked since 2007 with clients in England. Before 2005 I worked therapeutically for more then 20 years in The Netherlands as a Gestalt and Body therapist, as well as an expressive arts teacher. As a person-centred counsellor I am striving to be congruent, unconditional and empathic.

Frequently asked questions:

Why Supervision is important?

It develops the ability to self-monitor and be reflective about your client work:

Moment to moment awareness of all that may transpire consciously and unconsciously within the session
Insights, hunches; anomalous, intermittent or persistent internal reactions; hypotheses and conjectures
Consciously withheld thoughts, feeling, responses, to be noted, further developed and/or taken to supervision
Observations about one’s own occasional lapses, errors, skill deficits or recurrent ‘own material’ to be taken to supervision or own counselling
Awareness of times when fatigue, illness, emotional difficulties may amount to an impairment affecting competency to practice
Tape recording or written notes to be studied, analysed and learned from
Alternative, formal means of self, evaluation, such as a personal audit of skills, knowledge, issue of congruence or counter transference
Conclusion

Why is counselling supervision needed?

Supervision exists for two reasons:

to protect clients, and
to improve the ability of counsellors to provide value to their clients.

Supervision protects clients by involving an impartial third party in the work of a counsellor and client, helping to reduce the risk of serious oversight* and helping the counsellor concerned to reflect on his/her own feelings, thoughts, behaviour and general approach with the client.

NB * Oversight means the counsellor is not relating sufficiently to the client but gets lost in only treating the issues.

How much Supervision do I need as a counsellor?

Who needs supervision?

It is good practice that all counsellors and psychotherapists, regardless of experience, undergo supervision. Not only do most professional bodies in the UK such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy require supervision, but it is also seen by many as an ethical imperative. A client who encounters a therapist working without supervision should probably consider carefully whether they wish to work with that therapist. (Having said that, it should also be recognized that significant cross-cultural differences in views on supervision exist: many practitioners in the US, for instance, are not supervised.)

Who benefits from professional supervision?

• All practising counsellors, therapists, trainers, teachers, managers, ....

• Most professionals who work in the human service industry and other whose job has a large component that involves them dealing with people in crisis

• Any person who believes it could be advantageous

• Professional supervisors

We (BACP) don't specify how many hours of supervision all members should have as different members will have different needs. You should have sufficient supervision to allow all aspects of your work to be discussed as necessary, and to enable you to develop a constructive relationship with your supervisor.

The only exceptions are:

students and members who want the hours to count towards accreditation - now or in the future - must have a minimum of 1.5 hours of supervision a month
accredited and senior accredited members who are seeing clients must have a minimum of 1.5 hours of supervision a month

Students on placements as part of a BACP-accredited course must have:

one hour of supervision for every eight hours of client work
a minimum of 1.5 hours of supervision a month
supervision at least every two weeks

How often do you suggest supervision for other professionals?

• For those working under the BACP refer above, for those in the Human Services industry not practising counselling it is suggested that 1 hour per week is adequate in many cases.

Individual supervision or group supervision

Effective supervision practices can facilitate the professional development of the supervisee, the continued growth of the supervisor, and the overall development of our field and its practice.

A practitioner's learning and continued development typically is fostered through concurrent use of individual and group supervision. Group supervision is unique in that growth is aided by the interactions occurring among group members. Care workers and counselors do not function in isolation, so the group becomes a natural format to accomplish professional socialization and to increase learning in a setting that allows an experience to touch many. Supervision in groups provides an opportunity for supervisees to experience mutual support, share common experiences, solve complex tasks, learn new behaviors, participate in skills training, increase interpersonal competencies, and increase insight (MacKenzie, 1990). The core of group supervision is the interaction of the supervisees.

Collaborative learning is a pivotal benefit, with the supervisees having opportunities to be exposed to a variety of cases, interventions, and approaches to problem solving in the group (Hillerband, 1989). By viewing and being viewed, actively giving and receiving feedback, the supervisee's opportunities for experimental learning are expanded; this characterizes group supervision as a social modeling experience. From a relationship perspective, group supervision provides an atmosphere in which the supervisee learns to interact with peers in a way that encourages self-responsibility and increases mutuality between supervisor and supervisee.

Groups allow members to be exposed to the cognitive process of other counselors at various levels of development (Hillerband, 1989). This exposure is important for the supervisee who learns by observing as well as speaking. Finally, hearing the success and the frustrations of colleagues gives the supervisee a more realistic model by which they can critique themselves and build confidence.

Online supervision

Wherever you are working online you can benefit from the supervision process without loosing valuable working time through travel. It offeres flexibility when needing to have a holiday but need to finish off some loose ends of your work or to restart after a break. It connects you to your work when rehabilitating from illness or time out when family issues need your energy.

How much do I pay for supervision?

All fees are depending on income and will be agreed in the initial consultation:

Supervision (per 1 hour) £ 45 - £ 75; consessions availabe for trainee supervise

Group supervision fees are depending on the size of the group, for example a 2 hour supervision group with:
2 - 3 supervise is £35 each
4 - 5 supervise is £30 each
6 or more supervise is £25 each
negotiable prices for agency/company teams

The following is an extract from the BACP website: