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Key Concepts:
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Shulman adapts his model for working with individual clients to the supervisory process. Since both supervision of staff and work with clients are helping relationships, he believes that there are significant parallels between the two. Tuning-in and contracting are two major skills for supervisors to utilize in the beginning stage.
He points out advantages as well as disadvantages in applying the tuning-in skill. What are they?
The general skill of contracting is composed of several more specific skills: sharing a sense of purpose with the supervisee, delineating the supervisor's role, eliciting feedback from supervisees, and discussing mutual obligations and expectations related to the supervisor's authority. Hopefully somewhere in your experience and/or training you have been impressed with the importance of clarifying purpose. That process is equally critical in your role as supervisor as it is in your work with clients. To be clear about the purpose of your relationship and the expectations of each for the relationship can make the difference in whether or not your relationship is satisfying and effective. A reminder: this is not a single act in the first session with a supervisee. It is a process that is fine tuned and continued throughout the duration of the relationship as agency and job demands shift and the worker becomes more mature professionally. Contracting is a concept that includes and assists in clarifying purpose.
Shulman introduces an important caveat in your reading that I want to emphasize as well. He says: "Skillful intervention by a supervisor will not always produce a positive response. It is important to recognize the interactional nature of the supervision process: The supervisor has a part...and so does the person being supervised." This is a powerful concept when you consider its full implications. As supervisors and as clinicians, we are not totally responsible for outcomes...just our contributions to the process.
Another important skill in the beginning is the orientation to the agency, which may differ for new, inexperienced workers and those professionals who have more experience but in other settings or with other populations. Time and other demands sometimes result in new "hire" being given the "sink or swim " introduction to the agency and his/her responsibilities. I bet some of you have had that experience! A lot of time and agency staff resources are expended to bring a new staff member on board but in the long run, the dividends from that initial investment more than compensate when the new employee is fully equipped to perform his/her responsibilities with a minimum of hand-holding.
Shulman adapts and applies skills from direct practice with clients to the process of supervision. In the work or middle phase of the process, he reminds us that skills from the beginning and middle phases may also apply, he is attempting to identify those skills that are especially relevant to the work phase here. He actually clusters a number of specific skills into categories called skill factors so, for example, all behaviors associated with the supervisor's attempt to deal with the worker's emotional responses are grouped under the broad category of empathic skills. Other skill factors are sessional tuning-in skills, skills in making a demand for work, skills in pointing out obstacles, skills in sharing data, etc. There are several important concepts beyond identifying useful supervisory skills that I would like to emphasize.
First, Shulman makes the important point that as work progresses in supervision, it is not at all unusual to encounter ambivalence or resistance in some staff members. Resistance is normal and can be expected. According to Shulman it can even be an indication that the work is going well. While the supervisor must not relax the demand for work, the need for strong empathic skills to support the staff through work demands or unwelcome change is obvious. Barriers to empathic skills include the supervisor's authority over staff. Many supervisors believe that they must remain detached, clinical in a cold sterile sense, and not be overly friendly with staff to maintain respect and authority. While professional boundaries are very important, and Shulman goes so far as to say that "the ability to integrate support and demand is the hallmark of effective practice," staff is not likely to feel understood and supported by a supervisor who is cold and detached.
What do you think ?
A second important point is that while it is the supervisor's task to teach staff, "supervisors are real people". The goal is to create a climate in which both positive and negative feelings that arise in the work can be expressed in supervision.
Finally, it is so very important to claim your own humanity in the role. If you try to minimize or deny the authority inherent in the supervisory position you are at very high risk for abusing your power. Likewise, if you refuse to recognize and accept that there is no such thing as a perfect supervisor, you add undue stress to a very complex and difficult job. Admitting when you have missed signals, overreacted, failed to represent staff to administration, etc., both to yourself and, when appropriate, to your staff goes a long way to strengthen the common human bond between supervisor and staff. It also models mature professional behavior.
Briefly describe three tasks/skills of supervisors outlined by Shulman.
In thinking about models and skill for supervision, I feel compelled to underscore what I hope is obvious, but can easily get lost in today's practice world. I am referring to the notion that staff like clients must be individualized if there is any regard for the educative function of supervision, and may also be relevant in implementing the administrative function. What exactly do I mean by individualizing the worker, trainee, or counselor? Simply this: a supervisor must recognize that there are a variety of ways to learn and a variety of communication styles. We will discuss educational or professional assessment more at length. Supervisors must be ready to recognize and respect different styles, and to adapt to the developmental level and style of the supervisee when possible. When that is not possible, then it is important to own and discuss that with the supervisee rather than shaming the trainee over what is not working.
The supervisor must consider the individual needs of his/her staff, but also tend to the needs of the staff as a whole. This can lead to yet another situation in which the supervisor may be conflicted when faced with having to make decisions that are perceived to be in the best interest of the entire staff but may be contrary to the best interests of a minority of the group. Conflicts such as these, if pervasive and intense enough, can contribute to diminished job satisfaction and eventual burn out.
This seems as good a place as any to remind you of some characteristics of adult learners. When supervisors do not know the difference between androgogy and pedagogy in planning ways to promote staff development, there can be mutiny among the troops. Pedagogy is the art and science of teaching children, while adrogogy is the art and science of teaching adults. Child learners differ form adult learners in several important respects. Some of the characteristics of adult learners are: (1) Adult learners bring a broad range of experience, including both positive and negative experiences in formal education to the present learning table. (2) Adult learners are motivated to learn what they perceive will have some real value or applicability in their lives. (3) Adult learners want guides and mentors not dictators for teachers, i.e., they want to participate actively in shaping their own learning experience. I believe that these principles are applicable to children as well, but so far our educational institutions have not embraced them to any great extent. Training, whether individually or in groups, should be designed for adult learners which means that staff is involved in shaping the training experience, and supervisors allow for as much individualization of the experience as possible.
What are the characteristics of adult learners? Why is it important for supervisors to be knowledgeable about them?
In considering staff training and professional development needs, supervisors are challenged to think "outside the box." It simply is not realistic for a supervisor to think that he/she or the agency as a whole can meet all of the professional needs of any given staff. So in the contracting process, the supervisor and supervisee have the opportunity to negotiate and clarify who will do what for whom in this regard. Likewise, the supervisor should give careful consideration to the question of when is group supervision the method of choice based on the needs of the staff, time available, agency resources in personnel, money, space, etc. for training seminars, workshops, within and beyond the agency. If group supervision is the only supervision because other factors make individual supervision and other training opportunities impossible, then it is very important that everyone be clear about the scope of the needs that can be realistically addressed and what the limits or boundaries will be in that medium.
Shulman conceptualizes effective staff groups, and he identifies different kinds as groups of mutual aid. There is a mutual sharing of information, a place to bring up issues for friendly debate, open up areas of taboo, provide mutual support and empathy, and encourage mutual demand for work and confrontation. Different staff groups include staff meetings that are largely devoted to management issues, case consultation groups, group supervision, and in service training.
Do you know of examples of other kinds of staff groups? If so, please identify them.
What is a "mutual aid group"?
Shulman, L. (1993). Preparatory and beginning skills in supervision. Interactional Supervision, (2nd ed., pp. 35-76). Washington D.C.: NASW Press.
The beginning phase of a supervisory relationship is critical in establishing an appropriate structure for the working relationship. This is a crucial time in which issues must be addressed because both supervisors and staff are often tense and uncertain about their relationship.
The purpose of supervision is to get the work of the agency or other institutional setting accomplished. The first two phases from beginning to end of supervision are:
Preliminary- Tuning In. This takes place before the initial encounter between supervisor and staff. One of the key skills is tuning-in, which means to try to develop some preliminary empathy by putting oneself in the place of the other person.
Beginning Phase- Contracting. Staff anticipates what type of supervisor the new supervisor will be like and this will be a time for the workers to test the supervisor.
Four key skills of contracting in the beginning phase include the supervisor sharing his or her sense of purpose, describing the supervisor's role, eliciting feedback from the workers on their perceptions, and discussion of the mutual obligations and expectations related to the supervisor's authority.
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Going from practitioner to supervisor can be nerve-wracking. New supervisors inevitably face doubts about competency as they try out a new role. |
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Social relationships may be strained because roles have changed. |
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It is important for new supervisors to avoid stereotypes and not to believe the grapevines' description of a problem staff member. The supervisor should address the problem directly to break the patterns of miscommunication. |
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The hired-gun syndrome is when a new supervisor is brought in from outside the unit for the express purpose of straightening out perceived problems. The staff members often have a negative preliminary idea of the supervisor, so it is important for the supervisors not to lay down the law at the very beginning. It is important in developing a working relationship to get the staff's views on the problem and their suggestions. |
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Systematic efforts are under way in many human services organizations to increase the numbers of minority group members and women in management roles. |
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Most human services professionals would agree that these efforts are long overdue, but the implementation of these policies often has a powerful effect on the staff. |
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It is important to keep the lines of communication open within the agency, and to allow people to express their feelings. |
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In the beginning phases of the supervision process with a new social worker, the key areas for attention are the agency and its policies and procedures, including personnel practices and physical facilities; the staff unit in which the worker will do most of her work; the larger staff system that relates to this unit; the supervisor; and the client or receiver of services. The supervisor should be able to segment all of these parts into component pieces and to help new workers tackle each one, a step at a time. |
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Simply acknowledging the strain of so much new information in such a short time means a great deal to the new worker. In the social work setting, supervisors might invite new workers to sit in as observers on their interviews in order to get some ideas on how to begin. |
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The experienced new workers may be dealing with the additional stress of feeling they are supposed to understand and know more than they feel they do within the field. |
Describe the phases that take place from beginning to end of supervision.
Shulman, L. (1993) Work-phase skills in supervision. In Interactional Supervision. Washington, D.C.: NASW Press.
The skills of the work phase-in supervision have been grouped into general categories called skill factors. Each skill factor consists of a set of closely related behaviors in which the common element is the general intent of the supervisor using the skill.
Sessional tuning-in skills. The supervisor anticipates concerns and feelings of the staff that may emerge during the session, as well as his or her own feelings about the encounter that could affect the work. A supervisor can also use the skill to understand a staff member's pattern of behavior.
Sessional contracting skills. The supervisor uses the beginning of the session to introduce the agenda items he or she proposes, while inquiring what the staff would like to discuss. The mere act of paying attention to these concerns sends a message to staff members that the time belongs to them as well.
Elaborating skills. The supervisor questions and helps the staff members to elaborate and clarify specific concerns. The following are examples of elaborating skills:
Moving from the general to the specific
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Containment |
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Focused listening |
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Questioning |
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Reaching inside silences |
Empathic skills. The supervisor pays attention to the staff's feelings, as well as to the facts involved in any situation.
Reaching for feelings is when the supervisor asks the staff member to share the affective portion of the message.
Acknowledging feelings is important and occurs when the supervisor acknowledges the staff's feelings (words, gestures, expression, physical posture or touch) and understands the workers' expressed affect.
Articulating workers' feelings is a skill that helps the staff member to articulate the worker's affect just before the worker does so.
The skill in sharing one's feelings is a supervisory skill that helps supervisors to present themselves to the staff as human beings. Showing vulnerability, anger and underlying feelings of warmth and caring are difficult for supervisors to do, but are important to do at certain times.
Skills in making a demand for work is an important skill when ambivalence and resistance occur in supervision.
Understanding the change process is important for supervisors to realize because expressions of ambivalence, defensiveness, and resistance are normal, and that workers need to feel safe and supported in the change process.
Partializing the worker's concerns. This problem-solving skill helps to tackle complex problems by breaking them down into their component parts and addressing them one at a time.
Holding to focus. This skill asks the worker to stay focused one question or situation.
Checking for underlying ambivalence. This skill is important for checking out underlying feelings that the staff member may not be able to directly talk about.
Challenging the illusion of work. This skill is important when the supervisor feels that the worker is not tackling difficult issues by talking about trivial issues.
Presenting data in a way open to challenge. This skill helps worker to feel free to dispute ideas and this is where real learning can take place.
Sessional ending skills. These skills are needed in the resolution stage where the supervisor concentrates on how the work of the session will be resolved. Some of these skills include summarizing, generalizing, identifying next steps, rehearsing, and identifying doorknob communications.
Describe the skills of sessional tuning-in and sessional contracting.
What are elaborating skills? List some examples.
Why are empathic skills important?
Shulman, L. (1994). Educational Function of Supervision. In Interactional Supervision (pp. 155-201). Washington DC: NASW Press.
This chapter focuses on identifying and teaching core practice skills that are important in social work interactional skills.
It is important for supervisors to have knowledge and the ability to transmit the knowledge in a way that is open to challenge and discussion.
Requirements for Effective Learning (in supervision):
The learner must have a stake in the outcome and to be willing to invest some affect or feeling in the process.
The staff members must be actively involved in the investigation of ideas and in building their own models of reality.
The learners must have structured opportunities for using the information presented.
Practicing skill development is important for the learning workers.
Skills of Professional Performance (with supervisor being the mediator between the learner and the ideas to be learned):
Tuning-in and responding directly to indirect cues: The tuning-in skill helps workers put themselves in the place of the client as a way of developing preliminary empathy. The workers should be encouraged to sense the feelings of the clients by remembering a similar instance in their own experience when they sought help from some professional.
Contracting: An important part of the worker's preparation includes planning to clarify the potential working contract with the client during the first interview. Four critical skills of the worker in contracting are clarifying purpose, clarifying role, reaching for feedback regarding purpose, and dealing with the authority theme.
Dealing with the authority of the worker: The worker must be sensitive to how authority affects the client and must be prepared to discuss it directly if it blocks the working relationship.
Empathic skills: A central assumption about empathy is that the way people feel affects how they act and that the way people act affects how they feel. Three important empathic skills are reaching for feelings, acknowledging feelings, and articulating the client's feelings.
Sessional contracting: Involves an attempt at the beginning of each session to determine the central areas of concern. The skill involves asking clients at the beginning of each session what they would like to discuss.
Elaborating: Workers' skills that are helpful in encouraging client to tell their stories include containment, questioning, focused listening, reaching inside silences, and moving from the general to the specific. Containment helps the worker resist the tendency to provide a solution or an answer to a client's problem before the client has elaborated it in some detail.
Making a demand for work: This is based on the assumption that clients feel some ambivalence about the work to be done, which can lead to resistance. Specific skills that workers can use in making a demand for work include partializing, holding to focus, challenging the illusion of work, and engaging in facilitative confrontation.
Sharing own feelings: Feelings can be used professionally, as long as they are related to the worker's function and the purpose of the encounter. A worker can learn to share feelings of frustration, anger, and caring for clients in a professional manner, which can help clients learn to trust the worker.
Sharing data: An important skill for workers is the ability to share date with clients in a meaningful way. Data includes information, facts, values and beliefs held by the worker that may be relevant and helpful to the client in a particular instance.
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At the end of 6 months, workers should have some beginning skills at making clear statements of their purpose and role, and they should be making efforts to reach for client feedback. |
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The skill of reaching for negative feedback will not be evident until the worker develops greater confidence in his or her practice. |
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Actual progress will vary depending on what the worker brings to the situation in terms of personal and professional experience. The nature of the supervisory relationship will affect the pace of learning. |
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The supervisor must not forget how difficult the development of core skills can be and must not be too easily frustrated by the time required for workers to develop these skills. |
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Tools that can help workers analyze their own work include tape recordings, client feedback instruments, and videotapes. |
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Helping workers to be less judgmental of themselves is often the most important way a supervisor can help them to make their practice a continuous process of learning from their experiences. |
List 2 requirements for effective learning in supervision.
Name 3 skills of professional performance and describe how each skill is used.
What are some of the tools that supervisors can help workers use to help analyze their work with clients?
Shulman, L. (1993). Supervision of staff groups. In Interactional supervision, (2nd ed., pp.213-257). Washington, D.C.: NASW Press.
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Effective leadership is necessary to release workers' potential for mutual aid and constructive work existing within staff groups, both formal and informal, and to learn to work together effectively. |
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Supervisor must understand and facilitate the active role of all the participants of formal staff groups. The supervisor establishes what other staff members are expected to do. |
| An effective staff group can provide help to workers in a number of ways: |
Mutual aid through mutual sharing of data.
Mutual aid from clash of ideas during debates.
Mutual aid by opening up discussion in taboo area.
Mutual aid through understanding that all are in the same boat.
Mutual aid through mutual support.
Mutual aid through mutual demand.
Mutual aid through preparatory help.
| The beginning/contracting phase is the foundation for effective work. |
| It is often necessary to return to this phase for recontracting. |
| It is important to discuss how effectively group is working. |
| Purpose of staff groups. |
Staff meetings.
Case consultation.
Group supervision.
In-service training.
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Clarity about group objectives is necessary to enhance productivity. |
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Staff meetings: Staff also must have input in agenda building. Avoid creating illusion of democracy- does not exist in supervisor's group relationship. |
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Case consultation: Keep group focused on the case. |
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Group supervision: Use group to make contributions to worker's development. |
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In-service training: Practice is central subject with focus on ideas. |
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Supervisor must clarify purpose of each group session and obtain feedback on the staff's investment in those purposes. When mutual agreement is reached and supervisor's role is outlined, tentative working contract is created. |
| Leadership Styles: |
Aristocratic
Laissez-faire
Democratic (supervisor group leader role)
Mediation role: staff group is viewed as a special case of the more general worker-system interaction-supervisor mediates the engagement.
Work phase-in groups
| Work phase for staff groups includes dealing with the authority of the supervisor, developing a positive group culture, dealing with individual group issues, handling conflict among members, and working within the environment. |
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There are a number of properties that do not relate to individual members but are properties of the group as a whole. Include: cohesiveness and norms. |
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Group leader must become knowledgeable of formal and informal group properties and interpret behavior as evidence of these properties. |
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Leadership involves helping staff to build and strengthen group as a whole. Supervisor should monitor content of the work in the group and also the processes. |
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The supervisor is constantly trying to train the staff group to help it develop a more functional group culture. |
Roles of group members:
Deviant member-should not be seen as speaking for the group as a whole.
Internal leader-in all groups regardless of supervisor's effectiveness.
Quiet member-be direct and supportive to draw them out.
Scapegoat-supervisor should try to identify with scapegoat and group.
Search out the connection between the individual and the group.
The supervisor should place responsibility for helping to deal with problems on the staff members themselves. The supervisor must follow three principles:
Personal relationships between staff members are their own business.
It is a mistake to take on the role of judge, arbitrator, confidant or ally in conflict.
Deal with process rather than the content of the encounter.
A skillful supervisor gets the inevitable problems out in the open.
Relationship between supervisor and staff— "authority theme"
Five subthemes to the authority theme:
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control and power: supervisor should help staff make group their own. |
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superior as outsider: supervisor must accept role as outsider . |
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supervisor as source of support: ability to feel and express empathy is crucial. |
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limitations: supervisor can discuss own limitations in a nondefensive way. |
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supervisor as source of demand: needs to make demands on staff group. |
| Call the ending process to everyone's attention early enough so discussion can occur. |
What are three of the ways that an effective staff group can provide help to workers?
What are the four major purposes of staff groups?
Lowe, J. I., & Austin, M. J. (1997). Using direct practice skills in administration. The Clinical Supervisor, 15(2), 129-145.
This article discusses the relevance of using interpersonal skills both in direct practice and in administrative practice. The framework used in the article is problem-solving.
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Social work practitioners tend to develop their professional identity as either a direct practitioner or an administration manager. This becomes a problem when the direct practitioners move up into management positions and do not possess the needed skills. |
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Social worker practitioners need to be taught how to bring direct practice skills into managing social agencies since they will be acquiring new roles, knowledge and skills. |
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The problem-solving process is embedded in all forms of direct practice and can be viewed as both a bridging and unifying concept in social work practice as it is applied to situations involving individuals, groups, communities and organizations. |
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The major steps of the problem-solving process are: |
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Problem Identification: Exploration and Assessment |
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Decision Making: Plan of Action |
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Problem Resolution: Evaluation of the Process |
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In both direct practice and administration, it is important to engage in active listening and checking perceptions, as well as looking at body language while exploring and assessing a problem. |
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As in direct practice, it is essential to establish problem-solving goals, develop alternative solutions and a process for decision making in implementing a plan in an agency environment. |
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The problem-solving process is not complete until managers and staff evaluate the results of their work by using the goals generated at the beginning of the process. |
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It is also helpful to get feedback from staff to help debrief and encourage collective review of a shared process. |
Summarize the major steps of the problem-solving process.
What is the relevance of using interpersonal skills in both direct practice and in administration?
Notice and comment on the balance or lack of it between task and process emphasis in your work.
What contributes to team building or working cooperatively with other staff in your agency?
What can we do to change or enhance team effectiveness?
How are staff groups used in your agency? Suggest improvements that may be realistically implemented.
General comments, thoughts:
What skills have you learned as a practitioner that lend themselves to supervision?
What are the relationships of clinical practice to supervision? What are the differences?
Identify specific training words you would like to see addressed to improve your ability to supervise effectively.
General Comment, thoughts:
What are advantages and disadvantages in applying the tuning-in skill?
Briefly describe three tasks/skills of supervisors outlined by Shulman.
What are the characteristics of adult learners? Why is it important for supervisors to be knowledgeable about them?
What is a "mutual aid group"?
Preparatory and Beginning Skills in Supervision Study Questions
Describe the phases that take place from beginning to end of supervision.
In supervision with new workers, what are some important topics to discuss?
Work Phase Skills in Supervision Study Questions
Describe the skills of sessional tuning-in and sessional contracting.
What are elaborating skills? List some examples.
Why are empathic skills important?
Educational Function of Supervision Study Questions
List 2 requirements for effective learning in supervision.
Name 3 skills of professional performance and describe how each skill is used.
What are some of the tools that supervisors can help workers use to help analyze their work with clients?
Supervision of Staff Groups Study Questions
What are three of the ways that an effective staff group can provide help to workers?
What are the four major purposes of staff groups?
Using Direct Practice Skills in Administration Study Questions
Summarize the major steps of the problem-solving process.
What is the relevance of using interpersonal skills in both direct practice and in administration?
