Abstract:
An intense focus on high-stakes, risk assessment imposes greater accountability on practitioners and public expectations of professionals are frequently unrealistic. Supervision can be a key tool in ensuring the well-being of frontline workers. Research does indicate that supervision can provide some protection against the corrosive effects of exposure to demanding, stressful work and the impact of working closely with service users who have traumatic stories and are distressed by emotional, psychological and physical experiences (Mor Barak et al, 2009). Increasingly governments, professional bodies and employers have recognised this potential harm to professionals working in health, social care and justice settings and have acknowledged the obligation to ensure workplaces and practices are safe and that workers have access to a range of mechanisms to prevent harm. Students have to learn to fully utilise supervision, and field educators need to teach them how to be supervised. This is a neglected area in professional development for practitioners who take students on placement having had no supervision training. Davys and Beddoe (2009; 2010) provide a structure for student supervision that can be utilized for three outcomes: to assist students to learn how to be supervised; to assist field educators to develop their supervision skills and lastly to promote and build practitioner resilience.
