|
Conventional
Supervision
|
Family-Centered
Supervision
|
|
SUPERVISION
GOAL
|
SUPERVISION
GOAL
|
| Produce
competent frontline staff who focus on assisting families to
comply with agency-directed plans to keep children safe. |
Facilitate
development of competent frontline staff who will make good
decisions and empower families to make good decisions to keep
children safe.
Identify competence and build skills through observation, interactive
supervision, and continuous strengths-based feedback to improve
outcomes for families.
Create a climate of mutual respect, empathy, genuineness, and
trust between workers and families. |
|
SUPERVISORY
PRACTICE
|
FAMILY-CENTERED
SUPERVISORY PRACTICE
|
| The
focus is on caseloads and responding to tasks within time frames. |
The
focus is on families and finding realistic solutions that result
in good outcomes. Supervisors emphasize the importance of partnering
with families and affirm progress and successes. |
| Supervision
occurs only in the office. |
Supervisors
make home visits with staff to model, observe, and provide the
support and feedback that develops skills. |
| Supervisors
are the source of knowledge. Interaction with workers is situational
and primarily focused on problem cases or crisis intervention. |
Supervisors
guide workers on cases, encouraging them to look to each family’s
experience as a source of knowledge. Regular, scheduled case
consultation is used to foster skill development. Supervisors
also look for peer learning opportunities. |
| Interaction
with unit members is hierarchical. |
Interaction
is team-focused and collaborative, providing opportunities for
workers to take lead roles in peer learning, develop unique
expertise, and become “model” practitioners. |
| Evaluation
is formal, occurs once a year, and is supervisor- directed.
The comments and plans look similar from worker to worker. |
Evaluation
is ongoing, constant, and mutual. The supervisor is a discoverer
of individual competencies and strengths in workers. The worker
and supervisor jointly plan how to build worker strengths. |
| Practice
development opportunities for supervisors are passed up because
“there is no time.” |
Staying
abreast with best practices is a priority so supervisors can
more successfully mentor staff. |
| Supervision
suggests that workers are solely responsibile for child safety,
which places them in the position of making key decisions with
little to no input from other professionals or from the families
themselves. |
Supervision
helps workers engage families as well as formal and informal
community partners because “keeping children safe is everybody’s
business.” |
