supervising family and parenting workers

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Supervising amily and parentingworkers: a short guide

RESEARCH & POLICY FOR THE REAL WORLD

Supervising amily andparenting workers:a short guide

Honor Rhodes



Supervising amily andparenting workers:a short guide

Honor Rhodes

RESEARCH & POLICY FOR THE REAL WORLD

About the Family and Parenting Institute

The Family and Parenting Institute researches what matters to amilies andparents. We use our knowledge to inuence policymakers and oster publicdebate. We develop ideas to improve the services amilies use and theenvironment in which children grow up.

Visit our website at www.amilyandparenting.org or more inormation aboutour work and our other publications.

Subscribe to our ree e-newsletter: www.amilyandparenting.org/keepupdated

Acknowledgements

With thanks to the Department or Children, Schools and Families or theirunding support.

With grateul thanks to Sarah Fass, David, Lily and Max Levy and to FrankMolloy who recently reminded me what it was all or.

About the author

Honor Rhodes is Director o Development at the Family and ParentingInstitute. Her passion or research and developing new work is oundedon extensive practical experience o delivering support services to amiliesacing a wide range o problems.

© Family and Parenting Institute 2008

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Family and Parenting InstituteSupervising amily and parenting

workers: a short guide 1

Who this guide is or

This short guide has been written with both new and experienced managersin mind. We know that eective work with parents and amilies onlyourishes when the workers undertaking that complex and oten difcultwork are looked ater well, and that supervision is one o the best ways oachieving this. Sae and good supervision provides a time when workerscan tell (and show) their supervisor or manager some o the problems anddilemmas that they are encountering, seek help in applying good practicalresearch to an issue or think creatively about other ways to help parents andamilies change.

This guide is a companion to the book published in 2007 or those workingwith troubled amilies. Both are downloadable ree rom the Family and

Parenting Institute website as are the Briefng Sheets that support them.

This guide ocuses on agencies where managers are striving to ulfl theaccountability unction, perormance and appraisal issues, together with themuch harder task o helping workers manage themselves and the amily workthey are engaged in.

Managers are oten the group o workers who are so busy with a multiplicityo tasks that their own training and development needs get pushed toone side: don’t let that happen to you. I you are going to be engaging insupervision o areas o work that are new to you then you need training andsupport yoursel to be as eective as you can be.

Many managers undertake ormal management training; this short guide isnot a replacement or such study, but a starting point or those new to thetask or a reresher or those who have been working in these roles orsome time.

It pays to remember just why we are doing this job in the frst placesometimes, especially ater a difcult meeting or a hard day. Most o us aredoing this work because we want to, and because, ultimately, we believethat it makes a dierence to the help troubled amilies get. Good containingmanagement does make a dierence and indeed, what you say and do, howyou behave and what you consider important serves as a powerul learningtool or those or whom you are responsible.

“ I know that I need to leave my troubles by the door; my sta havetoo much else to be concerned with - i I distract them with my moods and annoyances it is just another thing they worry about.

ContentsWho this guide is or 1

What do we mean by parenting work? 2

What is supervision? 4

What is not supervision? 5

Sae and excellent practice 6

Planning, starting and ending 7

The challenging elements o parenting work 8Understanding agency roles, responsibilities and systems 10

Skills or successul supervision o parenting work 12

Tools or successul supervision 14

Supervision in difcult circumstances 15

Using telephone supervision 16

Telephone and email supervision 17

Using supervision contracts 18

Recording supervision 18

Resolving problems 20

Helping workers to ask difcult questions 22Helping workers to be most eective 22

Group, peer and ‘live’ supervision 23

How eective are we as supervisors? 24

Supervision or supervisors 25

Other things to think about 26

Further training and resources 27





It is why I have practised smiling at anyone who pokes their head around my door, even when I don’t eel like it.”

Hamid, Housing Manager responsible or the ASB Team

How to help amilies in trouble: a short guide

This companion guide is available atwww.amilyandparenting.org/publications

To complement How to help amilies in trouble there is a set o reedownloadable actsheets atwww.amilyandparenting.org/publications including:

• Assessment and tools to use: amily trees and ecomaps

• Helping parents help their children to behave well: behaviours, star charts,rewards and discipline

• The art o making good reerrals.

What do we mean by parenting work?

Thinking about amilies, dierence and comprehension

One o the challenges or many supervisors is in the word ‘parenting’. Manyo us will have worked in the feld o amily work or a long time; we may havehad a specifc ocus depending on our agency’s role. Housing Managershave oered support and a line o accountability or their teams o workersengaged in resolving tenancy/amily issues; schools have oered support toHome School Liaison workers, and health services have also been workingwithin the amily context or a long time as have their colleagues in children’ssocial care, now Children’s Trusts, and the voluntary sector.

We all have to acknowledge that the world has changed; the Government’semphasis on supporting every parent to be the best parent they can isdemanding particular attention rom anyone responsible or these servicesand their uture development.

The role o the supervisor has not changed but what we have to attend tohas. Some o the research that should underpin our workers’ practice is newand potentially very challenging. The skills that workers acquire are alsoones that we may not be amiliar with; or example, the ormalised ParentingGroup work programmes and approaches promoted by Government aseective interventions (have a look at the National Academy or ParentingPractitioners’ website or more details and some interesting research – see

Practice Inormation, overlea). Workers may be having supervision rom otherpeople i they are involved in running these types o groups in order that anexpert can check that the worker’s practice remains ‘true’ to the programme’smanual to ensure maximum eectiveness. As managers and supervisorswe need to understand what aspects o the worker’s perormance we areproperly responsible or and make sure we know how any other sort osupervision can be reviewed and remembered by the worker’s ‘home’ agency.

The majority o managers do not share responsibility in this way. Weare solely responsible or the worker’s activities and hence we need tounderstand what they know (so that we can add other inormation), whatthey do (so that we can test whether the approach they are taking is likelyto be the most useul) and what they are expecting to happen as a result o

their intervention.However we are working we will need always to be alert to the idea o‘dierence’. It is oten what troubles workers most. Examples o suchdierence which can conuse and worry workers might be a male workeroering support to a single parent mother; a black worker intervening in awhite amily’s lie; a very young worker being asked to advise a much olderparent and so on. Because amilies come in all shapes, sizes and rom themany communities that orm our society, we have a crucial role in helpingworkers develop sensitive and thoughtul practice when conronted withamilies who are very dierent rom those they have previously experienced.

We need to help workers think about their own belies and values, andthen probe and challenge these when they are not helpul. We, as managers,need to have done that thinking, too, about our own belies and judgements,so that every amily oered a service by our agencies is given the mosthelpul intervention, based on sound evidence rather than unexamined belie.

Helping our workers when aced with a amily who are very dierent romthemselves can be a time when a manager can suggest co-working as auseul way o helping a worker make better sense o what is going on. Pairingworkers allows both to learn and to teach each other and is an ideal way ohelping the most distressing amilies, who can easily deeat a single worker.

“ Because Lara is both very experienced and a real expert inworking with amilies where there are teenagers in trouble, the pair o them made a real dierence. Shahid is new in post but has the advantage o being able to rame the work in the context o a Muslim amily, he changed the way Lara worked as much asshe got him to be more assertive and clear about what needed to





change. Yes, I knew I was doubling the resource we were using but I reckon we got there more than twice as ast, so I was happy!”

Sheena, Youth In Need Service Manager

Practice Inormation:

National Academy or Parenting Practitioners: www.parentingacademy.org

Fatima Husain, Cultural Competence in Family Support - A Toolkit or working with Black, Minority Ethnic and Faith Families. Family andParenting Institute 2005, revised edition 2007.

What is supervision? And what is it or?

Dierences between types o supervision“ Supervision is, in principle at least, a process through which anorganisation seeks to meet its objectives through empoweringits sta.” (Thompson, 2005)

Supervision serves several overlapping unctions which is why it is one o themost useul activities an organisation concerned with human relationshipscan undertake. It holds the worker to account and, through the manager,the whole organisation. It develops sta and enables them to do more,with better and more reliable outcomes. It can add a real evidence base topractice and we can evaluate what we do, how we do it and what works bestor whom through the mechanism o supervision.

For workers though, supervision is a place where they can come to work ondifculties they are experiencing, a place to reect on what has not gone sowell and a chance to show a manager how well they are doing .

“ Reection is good in itsel, not just when things are difcult.I tend to explain it by using phrases like sharing thinking and ideas, considering dierent perspectives, looking at new meaningsand, crucially, generating ideas. I think that supervision is about arelationship, not just a place, time and a process. This relationshipneeds to be ‘sae’ in terms o a process o building mutual respect,trust and collaboration. Just to make it that bit more challenging,I also think that big issues like authority, knowledge, power and dierences should be acknowledged rom the outset so that wedon’t get tripped up by them later.”

Sarah, Children’s Network Coordinator

Sae, ‘protected’ time is what we all need. This short guide seeks to helpmanagers give just that to the sta and volunteers they are responsible or.

Some agencies use peer and group supervision; sometimes you will fndyoursel supervising someone down the end o a ‘phone (or by email).These types o supervision are explored later.

Other agencies have decided to purchase ‘clinical’ supervision or sta,leaving a team manager or centre leader with the task o managingperormance. The issue here is how the agency’s manager knows enoughabout what is being discussed in clinical supervision, how risk is beingconsidered and how agency practice is being ollowed. It works well or manyagencies and there are numerous articles and books about it.

Neil Thompson, Understanding Social Work: Preparing or Practice,Palgrave Macmillan; 2nd revised edition, April 2005.

John Driscoll, Practising Clinical Supervision: A Reective Approach .Bailliere Tindall, 2000.

Carol A. Falender (ed) and Edward P. Sharanske (ed), Casebook or Clinical Supervision: A Competency-based Approach. American PsychologicalAssociation; 1st edition, 2008.

Carlton E. Munson, Handbook o Clinical Social Work Supervision.Haworth Press Inc; 3rd edition, 2001.

What is not supervision?

A conversation in a corridor is not supervision, we are all probably wiseenough to know that and yet we can fnd ourselves doing it more otenthan we’d like. Whilst it can resolve a problem quickly or a worker, it can gounremembered and unaccounted or when we come to review the work. It

is worth the trouble o jotting down the gist o the conversation in a runningfle so that when you and the worker next meet or supervision you can reerto it and it becomes part o the supervision proper. It is oten these ‘corridor’conversations that generate activity and a change in the worker’s work planwith the amily, as you are usually being asked to help in a crisis or difculty.

The same thing can happen in a meeting on a dierent topic: the worker tellsyou something about a amily that you need to respond to - make a shortnote about this too and then it won’t get lost amidst the welter o inormationyou are having to manage every day.





“ I just make a mental note when a worker grabs me to see i thereis a pattern to it; it makes me wonder about what is not beingcontained by me, and the worker, in supervision. Haven’t we all had workers who always seem to fnd us just as we are leaving at theend o the day or in a rush to go to a meeting!”

Mehmet, Family Housing Manager

Practice Suggestion:

Keep a notebook with pages specifcally allocated or each worker to recordissues that have emerged outside supervision and bring these into thesupervision session - workers are usually amazed at your power o recall!

Sae and excellent practiceIt is one o the overlooked eatures o supervision that it provides agencieswith the most certain way o ensuring ‘good enough’ practice, and sadly, itsabsence is usually noticed as a key eature in an agency crisis or tragedy,like the death or serious injury o a child. By oering regular, sufcientsupervision to the workers or whom you are responsible you are makinga vital contribution. It is your attention to the details, your experience andunderstanding that help workers continue with ‘hard cases’ and learn tomanage risks.

“ I did sometimes eel it can get a bit humdrum, I looked at my diary and could see that I’d be supervising some workers every Tuesday rom here until I chose to leave. I wanted to make it as regular and consistent as it needs to be or them but it made me want toscream… I have played about with spreading it across dierent days but have decided that, or me, a supervision day sort o worksbest. It was only when I asked or, and got, regular supervisionor mysel that I elt better able to listen and be as interested as I needed to be to make it valuable or the team; that, and being moreocused on what changes we were making or the amilies.”

Tony, Children’s Centre Manager


I you are eeling a bit stale and overwhelmed by all the supervising you do,introduce a new element: insist on being shown the amily’s geneogram oramily tree, draw an ecomap o the amily with the worker and see what newquestions these tools suggest to you.

Planning, starting and ending

Just as workers need to plan their work with amilies, it helps to plansupervision sessions. When you take on a new worker this is an ideal time tostart a disciplined approach. I they are in the planning and preparation phaseo work then your supervision should reect that; i they are nervous andanxious, a session devoted to ‘starting work’ will be one o the most helpulthings you can do. Calm listening and thoughtul direction setting are the twothings that workers value most.

“ She just listens, only asks a ew questions , and then she is just quiet or a time. It elt really strange as I’d expected she’d say dothis and do that, I hoped she give me a shopping list o stu to do.It was me who had to say ‘I think I’ll contact the Dad’, I ought to talk

about the dogs and then I’ll use some time to see how the Mumis eeling. Ater I got over eeling a bit narked I realised she washelping me think or mysel and then I discovered that I can do thiswith the amilies I meet; my quiet time helps them fnd out what it isthey want and need to do. I suspect they get narked too, I just hopeit as useul or them as it is or me.”

Eva, Parenting Support Worker, Local Authority Housing Team

How we end an individual supervision session matters, just as how workersend sessions with amilies can have a tremendous eect on the amily’sability to use what they have discussed between sessions or not.

For workers it is usually sensible to start the session by agreeing the time youboth have available, whether that is 30 minutes or an hour. You will also haveexperienced the ‘last thing beore I go’ rule which is the hard issue the workerwants to leave you with as they go out o the door; not intentionally, o course,but because it is a painul conversation they would rather avoid or somethingthat they are fnding difcult to express – a conict, an anxiety or a concernthat is hard to articulate.

By reminding people that they have 10 minutes more and whether there issomething pressing they need to talk about, you are giving them a choice totalk about the hidden issues. Unless it is a real crisis issue you are also givingyoursel a choice about whether you deal with it then and there or make anote o it to act on frst the next time you meet, and explain that this is whatyou are doing to the worker involved. Being able to ‘hold on’ to difcult thingsbetween sessions is the mark o a good manager but don’t hold on to toomuch otherwise you just end up eeling overwhelmed. I it needs to be dealtwith, deal with it; otherwise note it and return.





“ She’ll say things like, ‘We let the Jones amily with a problem last time didn’t we? Tell me what happened and what do we need tothink about today?’ She always reminds me where we let o whichis comorting given she has so many other people’s cases to think about too.”

Asma, Family Action Valuing Families Project, Leicestershire


Avoid the ‘just one thing beore we fnish’ problem by managing thetime eectively.

What are the elements o parenting work that challenge

workers and their supervisors?

The one thing that challenges us all is working when we are araid. Whilstit might seem ridiculously obvious to suggest this, the truth o the matter isthat acute anxiety is not conducive to the sensible, sensitive and well-orderedthinking that is required rom managers. I we are really honest, we canrecognise a eeling o anxiety in the ace o a rightening situation, which is aproper reaction, but we can also be ear-flled when aced with circumstancesabout which we know little or nothing; then our biggest trouble is ignorance.

The role o the supervisor here is hugely important; how we manageourselves in such situations gives workers a clue as to how tomanage themselves.

Faced with a very new situation it is usually helpul to be clear that thisis, indeed, new to us and that the right thing to do here is to either talk tosomeone who knows about it or do a quick knowledge search. This is thepoint at which to use your computer like the door to the largest library in theworld rather than a super-typewriter. Bookmark helpul sites as you fnd themusing ‘Favourites’ with very clear categories and this will save you time whenyou want to search later.

“ Neither o us had a clue as to the nature o the Mum’s condition.I had a eeling that it was a long- term degenerative illness and that would complicate matters and i so we’d need to be planningor a dierent sort o work and reerral on, I was interested that Danny (the worker) had not asked the mother about it or done any research. I googled it in the session and we then had somethingboth very concrete but also incredibly painul to talk about. I could

entirely see why he hadn’t wanted to know but I elt that neither o us had the luxury o ignorance any more. It made me eel very hardnosed. I don’t think I am but I do need my workers to planusing reality rather than a hopeul fction.”

Nadira, Saeguarding Manager, Children’s Trust

The most challenging element o our work, whatever agency we undertake itin, is the weighing o risk, usually a consideration as to the saety o a child, avulnerable adult or worker and sometimes a combination o all three. What itpays to know here is what you must do: when presented with a crisis it is notthe time to re-invent a wheel. Know your agency’s saeguarding procedures,know where to fnd them, know that they are up to date and know who to callto talk things through with i you need to.

One o the most useul things we can do as managers on occasion is to ‘walkthe walk’, so when the need arises do that joint visit with the worker. They cansee how you operate and going as a ‘pair’ can be helpul, one o you can leadthe conversation and give the difcult messages whilst the other acts as anobserver and a supporter. It gives us the chance also to see the worker andassess their level o skill and knowledge.

What is important here is a good de-brie aterwards. The worker may eelextra vulnerable having had you observe their practice; eed back both thegood and the not so good careully. It is useul to say things like, “I liked theway you reminded the mother o her agreement to make sure the childrenwent to school every day, but the conversation about the playground incident looked a bit difcult. What would you do dierently next time?” This can help workers reect on their practice and do some betteranticipatory planning without eeling crushed and deeated.

We all learn best rom our own experiences especially when we are helpedto analyse what went well and what needed more attention. That is themanager’s role, less in telling and more in helping workers to discover orthemselves what is going on and what they can do about it, now and whenaced with similar situations in uture.


Start a helpul research sites older in ‘Favourites’ and add web pages as youbrowse. Have a look at sites like Social Care Institute or Excellence (SCIE)at www.scie.org.uk, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) at www.jr.org.uk andResearch Into Practice at www.rip.org.uk



Family and Parenting Institute0Supervising amily and parenting



Locate your copy o the appropriate Children’s Saeguarding Manual.Did you fnd it easily? Is it up to date?

Check that you know what to do out o normal ofce hours.


It is sensible to ensure that workers keep a Training and Development NeedsLog which can be used to plan how these needs will be addressed. Ater asession where you have observed the worker in action you may want to makeadditional training or proessional development suggestions.

Understanding agency roles, responsibilities and systems

One o the areas o most painul conict or workers is not actually withamilies and parents themselves, but with other agencies with whom theyare working.

Our own agency setting is something we need to think long and hard about.As a manager you will meet workers who are prooundly angry, not with aamily but with another agency, perhaps a GP or the children’s school. Thestrength o these eelings can be surprising and our job as managers is tohelp colleagues work out where they came rom.

Managers know, having seen it many times beore, that workers (andourselves) can have eelings ‘put inside’ them or ‘projected’ by amilies theywork with. The worker will need your help in understanding that and realisingthat, indeed, it can be helpul; giving them an insight into the world o theamily they are working with. What they really need your help with is not toact upon those eelings without understanding what they are and wherethey came rom. Help workers ask questions o themselves like, “that’s

interesting, why am I eeling so angry with the school/sad about thecouple’s separation/mad at that stupid doctor?”

Rather than getting sucked into a welter o emotions and eeling movedto phone up or fre o a ferce email in deence o your worker, consideryour response also. We can easily escalate problems and, as agencies, getinvolved to protect our workers whilst none o us has time to notice that theemotions came rom the amily or whom we are all working. None o this isconscious, which makes it all the harder to spot and all the more necessarythat we have some thinking time beore we decide that the school secretarydeserves an earul or sending the children home or a housing ofcer shouldbe reported to their manager or a lack o co-operation.

Take a moment to think about the last time your agency got involved ina battle with another one. Be honest, it was probably concerning a amilywhose powerul eelings had spread like u across the system andacted on individuals and agencies in ways that they did not recognisebut were unhelpul.

Families in trouble lead complicated emotional lives; their eelings do aectus and can lead workers to either get ar too close (a sort o co-opted riend),or get angry on their behal, or get angry and punishing towards them. Noneo these reactions is rational and, indeed, when you point them out - howevergently - you will fnd yoursel being resisted, but continue the challenge andhelp the worker identiy their unusual behaviours and reect upon them more.This is the point where the dierence between the idea o what the agency

should do and the reality o working with amilies can be most pronounced.Workers will need your help in bridging the gap.

Agency battles are inevitable but by maintaining a calm tone, anundeensive manner, a clear view o what you can lawully oer and whatyou must do in the light o the inormation you have you stand a greaterchance o persuading other agencies to meet your expectations in theirwork with amilies.

“ I take a deep breath, sit back in my chair and listen hard to my toneo voice. When I get a bit cross my voice gets a bit higher and I can easily sound more combative than I eel; when I am really angry I end up squawking so I really don’t want to get to that pitch. It isalways, always about money, money and resources, who can’t dowhat because they haven’t got a worker and things like that… I try and get my oer in early and use that as a reminder that we canall collaborate. No, it isn’t easy but when it works it really producesa beneft.”

Ade, Family Intervention Project Manager

Workers have to learn that amilies are complex systems ; managers have toremember that agencies working with amilies are an even more complicatedsystem. It can help to map them all out so you can see where the overlaps(tur wars) and gaps (no agency taking responsibility) are and then thinkagain about what needs to be done. As managers we have greater accessto key strategic groups where such inter-agency battles can be oughtmore appropriately than by a worker on a amily’s behal. It also pays usto remember that the workers we manage may have high hopes that wewill take the battles on and ‘win’. Our thoughtul decisions to take the





disagreement to a multi-agency orum can be seen as disappointing to aworker who was usually hoping that we would ride in on their behal like aknight on a charger. We have to resist their desire to make us omnipotenthowever seductive that might be.

In the longer term what we know is that it is relationships between individualsin agencies that produce good inter-agency working which means that wemust pick our battles careully and always with the best outcomes or amiliesin mind.

“ I could have ought it but frstly I wasn’t sure I’d win and secondly a big row about who said what to whom was going to go precisely nowhere, and I’ve spent a long time cultivating relationships withmy colleagues in the YOT so in the end we agreed to disagree

which made my worker angry but I was better able to tolerate that knowing that I was right to do so. The joys o management, eh, thecompromises and sleights o hand .”

Tammy, Senior Education Social Worker

Further reading

A. Obholzer and V. Zagier Roberts (eds) The Unconscious at Work.Individual and Organizational Stress in the Human Services.Routledge, 1994.

C. Hufngton, D. Armstrong, W. Halton, L. Hoyle and J. Pooley (eds) WorkingBelow the Surace. The Emotional Lie o Contemporary Organizations .Karnac, 2004.


Use an ecomap to help locate the amily in the multi-agency context.

See the downloadable briefng sheet or How to help amilies in trouble atwww.amilyandparenting.org/publications

Assessment and tools to use: amily trees and ecomaps.

What are the skills managers need to be successul

supervisors o parenting work?

The skills we need as managers are those we need to be eective workers:listening, critical thinking, analysis, case planning and using research, to namebut a ew.

What we need more o as managers is excellent sel-regulation and a deepinsight into the emotional world o the workers we are managing. We can’tdo it all the time, but this is the ‘gold standard’ we should be holding in mind.The ability to manage ourselves and our responses means that we can bereliable and trusted as supervisors. We earn the trust placed in us so that wecan ask probing and sometimes really uncomortable questions, and suggestequally challenging courses o action. The building o a supervisor-superviseerelationship is very like that o building a relationship with a amily; the samerules apply, going at the worker’s pace wherever you can, using a contract orclarity o purpose and to resolve disputes and the ability to bear ‘not beingliked’ on occasions when we need to conront and help the worker change.

O all our many skills it is usually the active listening that is the most

inuential and the one we fnd hardest to oer when we are pressed or timeand have many other things weighing on us. It is the one skill we can, all ous, always improve upon: just by listening to yoursel listen you can discoverwhen you indicate you’ve heard enough by a gesture or a sound. This may beappropriate; you may indeed have heard enough to need to test out the ideathat has ormed in your mind or on the other hand you may be bored, anxiousabout something else or just wanting to get a move on - it happens to us all.The question we need to ask ourselves at these points though is, ‘Why now?’,what is it that the worker is evoking in you; is it something rom the amilythat is being brought into the room; is the worker showing you how boredand rustrated they are with the amily? This can eel like an endless set oreecting mirrors but a helpul supervisor will look at the reections and pickout rom the images the ones that are going to help the worker most. Youmay fnd a clue in the language a worker is using that gives you the handle ona amily, or in their body language.

“ She is normally quite a loud person but in this session her voicewas dropping and I ound mysel struggling to hear. I sort o gaveup - i she wasn’t making it easy or me then I was going to think about something else and then I heard her describe the girl’sboyriend as very, very, very aggressive. It was the triple ‘very’ that made me jump back into it all; that is not her style at all, that coupled with the near whispering made me think that she might have been very rightened when she met this man unexpectedly at the girl’s house. We talked about all o that and she was surprised to fnd hersel talking about her emotional response. I wasn’t sosurprised at all; she’s told me by showing me in a way.”

Irene, Outreach and Family Support Manager






Build a mental map o the workers you supervise, add details as you fndthem. This will help you identiy thematic difculties (the worker who fnds ithard to recognise change, the one who fnds couple conicts nearly too hardto bear and the other whose peacekeeping looks a bit too like appeasementor your liking). This helps us check and think harder about issues theypresent and, even more importantly perhaps the issues they are not bringingto supervision.

What are the tools managers need to be successul

supervisors o parenting work?

Apart rom active and acute listening, managers need to use the skills they

want their workers to demonstrate every day in their work, so being organisedand prepared is important. It is oten hard to fnd the time to be as preparedas we would like to and it is supervision sessions that can get squeezed,because they are internal meetings with colleagues. We oten arrive under-prepared, not having had time to recollect the previous conversations, tolook through notes and to consider how we are working in appraisal issuestoo. Even i you can give yoursel just three minutes to review and prepare,you will fnd yoursel saving a lot o time in the session itsel and helping theworker eel that previous conversations have registered with you.

Another key skill, o course, is knowing what questions to ask, how and when.Workers oten expect their manager to ‘know all the answers’ particularlythose new in post. It helps to explain that the supervision conversation is adialogue, with questions rom both sides. The manager is not in the roomwith the worker when they meet the amily so they need to know not onlywhat was said and done but to help the worker consider their relationshipwith amily - how the worker elt beore, during and ater the session - as this

helps the manager orm the best picture they can o the work. ‘Triangular’questions can help i you eel the worker is getting stuck: something like,“What would Yusu, the eldest boy, say about the session i I asked him?”

What managers have and need to use to their advantage is the position theyhold as an ‘overseer’, together with a degree o emotional objectivity. Weare able to see the amily and the worker as a system; our questions needto relate to that to be most helpul. When the worker is in the room with theamily, the tool they have to use is the relationship they build with the amily.By helping the worker ocus on this we are helping them make the changesthey, and oten the amily, desire to happen.

Workers need our support when they realise, with our help, that the onlybehaviours they can reliably change are their own and by making changesin how they think about and act with a amily the system changes with them.This is one o the hardest parts o amily and parenting practice or workersto grasp and one o the most anxiety-provoking. It is here that a supervisormakes a dierence. By shiting workers’ perceptions rom eeling persecutedby amilies, or rom being co-opted as a riend, we help them becomemore eective.

We have to remember, though, that the changes we are suggesting meanthat the worker, inevitably, relinquishes something: resistance to a new ideaor position rom you will tell you something about the worker’s strength oattachment to their previously held viewpoint. All we can and should do

is to carry on, continuing with our suggestions and oering appropriateexplanations. We may not see immediate change in the room but it is oten inthe next session that the worker shows you they have both thought about andacted on the supervision conversation you had with them.

An under-used skill is praise giving. We intend to do so but it can get lost inthe maelstrom o a session. Decide that you are going to use authentic praiseand regard in session and do it just to see what happens. This will be a skillthe worker will be helping parents use, particularly i they have undertakenthe ormalised parenting programme training. It is thereore all the moreimportant that we understand its ‘currency’ and use it ourselves. Truly, wecan all o us never be thanked enough or the hard and emotionally laboriouswork we do, it just requires someone to start the praise giving and that is oneo the important things that a manager can do. Praise is particularly helpulas a way o underlining the behaviours we want to see more o: “I do like theway your records are clearly showing how the work plan is going” , or “Your being on time and prepared is something about you that I really admire” . Itdoes need to be authentic ; we humans are very sensitive to alsity so use itwith care, but do use it.


A amily therapy teacher once suggested that there really were only threequestions that needed to be asked: Why now? What or? and Why Worry?See i they work or you.

Supervision in difcult circumstances

Helping workers in crisis is a key skill o any manager. What we have to do ,however hard, is to be as calm as we can be whilst undertaking any orm o





risk assessment. What makes it harder or us is that we are at one remove.We must both use the worker’s intelligence about the amily but bear in mindalso their ‘blind spots’ that we know rom supervision. Whilst not wantingto advocate the ‘rule o optimism’ (things will be all right) it is sensible justto try out the thought about what would happen i you did decide to donothing. Usually we do try and do something: the issue is that in a crisis, withthinking clouded by anxiety, we can pick the least helpul thing with long-termdamaging consequences.

Talk with the worker about the range o options open and the risks andbenefts o each. Accept that in most cases the fnal decision will be yours,that is what you are being paid or but you are using the worker as colleagueto think through the process. Crises in amily and parenting work come in all

shapes and sizes: or the amilies that are really troubling we usually have amulti-agency system on which to call; use it to check your thinking and to getup-to-date inormation on the amily.

We can and should prepare or a crisis. At regular intervals in the work weshould check out with the worker any contingency plans we make: “I shedoes need to go into hospital is the carer really ready or the children?” or“I they do say that Lennie can’t come home ater an incident in the policestation what is our plan?”. It is the manager’s job to help the worker thinkabout crises and general emergencies or all their cases. It is easiest to dothis when things are relatively calm and once a worker has been encouragedto use this discipline they learn to do it across all their cases.

Using telephone supervision

Occasionally you will fnd yoursel supervising someone at the end o atelephone; perhaps this is not ideal in a crisis, but it happens. We just haveto have the same discipline as we would i we were in a room together: a

logical sequence o questions, a clear checking back that you have properlyunderstood what is being said by the worker and a mutually agreed action list.

The conversation needs to be clearly recorded or the fle and workers need amanager to check with them, preerably on the same day, that whatever wasneeded has happened. This ‘punctuation’ is important and makes workerseel more secure in their practice and confdent in your confdence in them.

Experienced supervisors indicate that much can be accomplished in ashort telephone supervision session; the manager and worker eelingless constrained by each other’s physical presence in the room with moreopportunities to check that issues have been understood. Here the manager

will be considering inormation on the worker’s tone o voice, the pauses theyleave, and the words they use to describe situations and emotions. This typeo inormation may be absorbed unconsciously when a worker is in the roomwith us; the telephone orces us to attend to it in a much more dynamic way.Try it and see or yoursel.

Telephone and email supervision as a matter o

general practice

Some managers need to use supervision over the telephone as a means ooering regular supervision, perhaps because the worker is o site most othe time. This is perectly acceptable but requires o both parties tounderstand what is required o them and to write the issues into the

supervision agreement they create together.Telephone supervision should take place at a regular time. Both people needto be in a comortable place with easy access to writing materials, bothshould avoid having a computer nearby unless by mutual agreement you aregoing to look at emails and documents at the same time. The supervisorhere needs sel-discipline to concentrate only on the conversation at handand not to take the opportunity to tidy their desk, water the plants or do aspot o fling. We would not do this i the person was in the room with us andsuch tasks, small and trivial though they may be, detract rom our completeconcentration and are detected by our supervisee.

As a telephone supervisor you may fnd yoursel listening harder and beingmore ready to challenge a worker’s perceptions or plans o action. Youmay also fnd it places you at a healthy ‘remove’ rom the problems beingdiscussed and so we may be less tempted to involve ourselves in the workthan i the worker were in the room with us.

The supervision must be recorded as any other ‘in the room’ session wouldbe. Many telephone supervisors send an email soon ater the session withthe key points and agreements; this is then ollowed later by a uller digesto the session.

Some supervisors are experimenting with email supervision. This would workwhere both sides are ast typists, where a worker can write lucidly aboutissues and a manager can respond with equal clarity on the issues andquestions raised.

I would suggest that or the particular types o amily and parenting workwe are considering here and the dilemmas and risks we ace within it,





Resolving problems: in the work; in the relationship;

helping workers who eel stuck, rightened, bored

or overwhelmed

One o the problems supervisors contend with regularly is a worker with adifculty in engaging a amily or eeling very stuck and miserable about theway the work is going. The particular challenge or the supervisor is to enablechange to happen but at one remove, helping a worker rerame their work sothat change occurs. This is the point where we have to resist the temptationto weigh in with our years o practice experience and knowledge; this cansimply overwhelm the worker who is already eeling unskilul and anxious.Oer them help and support in making a change. Perhaps some trainingor development through co-working will ‘unstick’ them but most oten it

happens in supervision with someone like you. Have some relevant researchto oer them and time to listen to the eelings the amily evokes, what thismeans or the worker and what they have tried already. Think with the workerabout the stage their work has arrived at. Are they still in the oothills othe ‘beginnings’, stuck in a slough o despond in the ‘middle’ or fnding the‘ending’ difcult? What we might chose to oer them will vary according tothe pace and intention o the work.

Sometimes the amily’s difculties spill over into the supervisor-superviseerelationship and sometimes that relationship is already difcult withoutadding extra dilemmas. The plain truth is that we will all have supervised, aresupervising or will supervise someone whom we fnd difcult. What we needto do in these circumstances is acknowledge to ourselves that this is so,rather than not think about the issues and hence be less prepared than weshould be to circumnavigate the problems as they arise.

The power dynamic o the relationship can be painul or some workerswho fnd it difcult to deal with the supervisor’s clear role as scrutiniser or

challenger, or the act that they are being supervised by someone youngerthan themselves or o the opposite gender or a dierent ethnicity. Wherethese dierences cause difculties they are best talked about and not justonce but regularly to prevent them obscuring work that needs to be done.These, whilst painul, are issues where nothing can be changed: you can’tchange gender, become older or a white person but you can help the workerreect and start thinking dierently. This is all the more important i you thinkthat these issues o dierence might also aect their work.

It also helps to remember that we will all be inuenced by earlier experiences,both o supervision and o other, oten amily relationships and inevitably

these come with us into the room. We just have to be knowing enough toavoid allowing them to obstruct us.

The really troubling relationships are those where you can’t quite tell what isgoing wrong:

“ It was strange rom the start; I just ound her hard going. Shewas late or sessions, orgot what she had agreed to do, wasreluctant to talk in any detail about cases where I did want to havea closer view. I ound mysel losing all humour and becoming very demanding, not my style at all. I tried to talk about the issues withher and she just atly denied there was a problem. I ound mysel acting covertly, checking her cases when she was out and thenI thought this is nonsense. I put it to her straight that it wasn’t

working and she then told me that was what her previous manager had said to her as well. I could have let it but rather than just goaway thinking it was her ault or being unmanageable I did somehard thinking and started to change the way I behaved: I asked her opinion more, I tried to treat her as a valuable colleague. It haschanged; we are not out o the woods yet but I can trust her and I know I have a decent enough overview o her work.”

Tina, Children’s Centre Manager

In circumstances where you eel it is just not working out between you anda supervisee then seek help rom your own manager, and don’t leave it toolong, as eeling undermined and uncertain in one relationship can aectothers and it will probably take up a disproportionate amount o your time in‘worry work’ whilst generally making you eel less eective. Whilst you arebeing paid to be a manager, you are not required to do everything all the time.Protect yoursel and your own wellbeing by asking or and getting help when

you need it.


The FPI Guide How to help amilies in trouble has a section on what workswith amilies who make workers eel anxious, rustrated and bored:see www.amilyandparenting.org/publications


Do you have a supervision agreement with your own manager? I not , work onone so you can have an agreement in place about the support and help youneed (and deserve).





Helping workers to ask difcult questions

Just as you have to ask hard questions o workers on occasion, so workersneed our help in asking them o amilies and giving hard messages. Oneo the most useul ways o helping our sta is to ask them to role-play thesession they need to have and practise the tone o voice and the languagethey need to use. Even the most profcient worker can fnd themselves‘sotening’ a hard thing to say, by smiling as they say it, which conusesamilies as to whether it is really meant or not. Workers can resist doingthis sort o work with you. Sadly, this usually means they need your help allthe more. Persist and make an oer o ideas yoursel: “I wonder i sayingsomething like – ‘We had an agreement that the children would be in bed by 8pm, it isn’t working, is it, and I’ve noticed that the shouting is startingagain” . The worker can then try out that script and see i it works or themand how they can improve upon it.

When we know our workers are going to undertake a difcult meetingwith a amily then that is the time to be available or them aterwards andanalyse how the session went, what they thought they did well and what theycould have done dierently. A manager who acts in such a thoughtul andconsidered way is one who truly understands the job.

Helping workers to be most eective:

how can we know how good we are?

All our endeavours have a single end in view: helping our sta be as useul asthey can be to parents and amilies in distress and trouble. Whilst weall have strengths and weaknesses, it is the manager’s role to bolster,support, cajole, convince and lead sta to be as good as they can be in thiscommon purpose.

One o the ways we do this is by asking workers how eective they are beingin the work they do. Many just don’t seem to know, some are modest andsome have a dierent perception o their excellence rom yours.We can usestandardised measuring tools to help us know that what we do is making apositive dierence. Many agencies are using simple questionnaires beorework starts and at the end so as to measure the eect o the interventionsthey make. A simple tool to use is the Goodman Strengths and DifcultiesQuestionnaire but there are many more. I your agency is not using suchmeasuring devices then talk the idea through in your management team andyour agency generally.


I you do not currently use any measuring tools have a look at theGoodman Strengths and Difculties Questionnaire and see i it wouldwork in your agency. There are others so ask FPI or help i you’d like to bedirected to them.

www.sdqino.com/b1.html

Group, peer and ‘live’ supervision

One way we can get a real sense o what workers are really good at andwhat less so is through a pair or group supervision session. Some supervisorsuse groups all the time. Whilst it does cut down on the time spent in ace-to-ace supervision, there are challenges o course, not least in managingthe complicated group dynamics that are an inevitable consequence obringing people together to talk about human issues and problems. I you areinterested in group supervision, then this is a ascinating area or your owndevelopment and learning.

Some agencies use ‘peer’ supervision: workers meeting together to oereach other support and reect on dilemmas. The process is valuable and hasa good evidence base or supporting learning; try it yoursel with a colleagueand i you are interested read some more about it and secure some trainingon supporting it.

‘Live’ supervision is just that: real time supervision taking place in the roomwith the amily. Every supervisor should make a point o seeing how theirworkers actually work. Plainly a amily has to agree to the idea; most areunusually receptive in that it gives them a confdence that the worker’sagency is keenly interested in them. Families are oten more accommodatingto the idea than workers, who can fnd the process intimidating, but once

you explain uently the reasons or needing to see them at work then thereluctance, i not the anxiety, can be overcome. It is helpul to explain to thewhole team at the same time this approach so that no one eels singled outor ‘special’ treatment.

Talk the session plan through beore you go. Decide whether you aremerely going to observe or at points intervene with suggestions. For newworkers lots o support and little challenge is the best model in termso their learning and confdence: or experienced practitioners the moreconsidered challenges may be helpul. I you have not undertaken ‘live’supervision beore, then try it out frst on yoursel by asking your supervisoror a colleague to observe you at work in supervision and to give you eedback





aterwards. Whatever you are eeling about the process your workers will eeltoo, in vivid Technicolor, as or them it is happening in ront o a amily withwhom they will need to continue working.

Ater the session with the amily make sure you have time to meet with theworker to consider the issues. Acknowledge that their anxiety may haveaected their perormance, identiy clearly the areas where you could seethey did well, and oer some general eedback on the issues with which theystruggled somewhat. Don’t eel the need to go through each and every onethen and there; you have other supervision sessions in which the issues canbe more ully explored. One o the very helpul things that you can then do isto write a short note to the amily thanking them or allowing you to observethe work, pointing to several things that the worker seemed to do well and

the progress that they themselves have made with the worker. This allows theworker to talk through with the amily what happened when you were in theroom and some o the ideas you two have talked about since then that mightbe helpul or them.

Live supervision is an invaluable tool, but rarely used, perhaps because othe emotional complexities involved. With orethought, planning and a highdegree o honesty you can make it one o the most illuminating tools you canuse to help workers develop and change.

Brigid Proctor, Group Supervision: A Guide to Creative Practice,Second Edition, 2008, Sage Publications.

www.peer-supervision.com/

www.salomonsclmd.org.uk/news/Free-Guide-Action-Learning-Sets-Peer-Supervision.php

www.shsu.edu/~piic/all2005/esposito.html

www.cyc-net.org

How do we know how eective we are as supervisors?

It is important that we continue to improve our own supervision practice. Oneo the best and hardest ways is to ask those whom we supervise what theythink. A general conversation can be helpul, perhaps when you come toreview a supervision contract, but this seems to evoke one o two responses:those who like you suggest that your practice is excellent and those whofnd the process hard going suggest that it is defcient. Neither is helpulin terms o your own learning. I you really want to know be more scientifcabout it, use a questionnaire, administered anonymously to your team or the

most truthul results or, i you supervise just one or two people, accept thatthey may have to pull some o their punches but that the process will stillgive you things to think about and something to work on. We have supplieda questionnaire or use as a downloadable tool. It is helpul to undertakethis type o activity at regular intervals, perhaps once a year just beore asupervision agreement or review meeting so that you can see how you mightbe able to help your workers more.

The trick here is to be undeensive about the results. We all know that ourpractice is limited by the time and the emotional resources we have; we cannever be ‘perect’ supervisors and that is probably a good thing as we woulddaunt and overwhelm our sta. To see us struggle on occasions and to winthrough difculties is more helpul.

Accept that the sta we supervise have a legitimate viewpoint and that theyhave useul things to say about our organisational skills and our ability tolisten and communicate. In this way we are able to encourage them in thetask o asking the amilies they work with how the work has seemed to themand hence improve their practice. There is equity and encouragement i thewhole organisation is regularly asking itsel how it is doing in the complicatedtasks it sets itsel.


Ask your supervisees what is helpul about your supervision and what youcould improve upon. Use this tool as a starting point:

FPI Briefng Sheet: Supervisor Eectiveness Tool (downloadable romwww.amilyandparenting.org/publications).

Supervision or supervisors

Do you have regular, helpul supervision? I not, why? Are you assumed notto need it? Perhaps it looks at perormance rather than having any emotionalcontent? Perhaps it is just not as good as you would like? Whatever thereasons and circumstances it is clear that those who supervise others needto have a thoughtul and sae place themselves to talk things through.Most agencies accept this and you may want to argue the case or someexternal supportive supervision or yoursel i no one in your organisation hasthe time or capacity to oer it themselves. The same rules apply as whenworkers have ‘o line’ supervision; it needs to be recorded, and linked withagency practice; issues identifed need to be taken up within the agency andresolved; your manager needs to know what you are talking about and aboutany actions you are taking as a result o it.





Many supervisors are getting together across agencies or support in practicelearning sets, a good example o both group and peer supervision. Find outi anyone in your local authority area is starting a group or start one yoursel,with support. The Training/Development Unit within the Children’s Trustwould be a good place to start or inormation and direction.

www.actionlearningsets.com/

Finally, some other things to think about

Some managers choose to make sure supervision comes with tea and abiscuit. This can be helpul; we are showing that we are attending to workers’human needs. Some don’t: whatever you do needs to ft with your personalityand style o engagement. There is very little that is simply right or wrong,and it is comorting to remember that management is as much an art asa science.

What makes some managers special is the act that they can bear to noticesta distress; they make themselves available to attend to it whatever elsethey have to do. This does not mean that their door is always open and thatthey are diverted rom important tasks, it is just that they manage to do bothin a way that satisfes agency demands and sta needs. A good manager is‘taking the temperature’ o the team at regular intervals, asking people howthey are in a way that allows the worker to really tell them rather thanoering a smile and saying “Fine” because they don’t want to be a botheror take up time.

Another skill that good managers have is the ability to remember birthdays,when people have booked leave, anniversaries and painul days, some othe doings o workers’ amilies. Some managers make it look eortless andundertake the task without being intrusive or trying to be everybody’s best

riend. Whilst this is not ‘supervision’ in the sense that we have been talkingabout beore, it is a part o the managerial role. Taking care o your workerscollectively assists you in taking care within supervision; you are showingyour trustworthiness and strength. What such managers get in return is aloyal team and one that eels cohesive and supportive, able to extend caregiving to all members. Like every amily, teams have their ups and downs butthe manager’s supportive role is obvious and all the more important or thoseo us engaged in amily and parenting work.

With attention and thought we can all be better managers and a ew o us willbe lucky enough to be the sort o inspirational manager that people seek outto work with, and remember or ever, just like a good teacher, which is whatwe are.

Whatever we do, we just need to remember that each o us has a beatinghuman heart; it is this that adds complexity and challenge. We bring intothe room not only the amily we want to talk about but our own amilyrelationships and those o the supervisee. It is these reractions in the mirrorthat add the opportunities or change and growing in learning and skill. Agood manager can look in the mirror and see the puzzle or what it is, helpingthe worker to a clearer view.

Whilst the glamour and the pain may seem to be in the direct work with

amilies, workers are entitled to expect truly helpul understanding, andcontainment, rom a manager standing behind them, providing comort andenduring support.

Further training and resources

A more orthodox overview o supervision can be ound on the Children’sWorkorce Development Council’s website, downloadable:

Providing Eective Supervision rom Skills or Carewww.cwdcouncil.org.uk/providing-eective-supervision

A thoughtul and interesting view o the management task in the everchanging world o social care is:

Lynette Hughes and Paul Pengelly, Sta supervision in a turbulent environment . Jessica Kingsley, 1997.



Published by the Family and Parenting Institute

430 Highgate Studios53-79 Highgate RoadLondon NW5 1TL

Tel: 020 7424 3460Fax: 020 7485 3590

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.amilyandparenting.orgPrinted on paper rom a sustainable source

This highly practical guide is or new and experienced managers.Eective work with parents and amilies only ourishes when thoseundertaking it are looked ater well: and good supervision is one othe best ways o achieving this. This book covers key supervisiontechniques including:

• safe and excellent practice

• planning• the challenging elements of parenting work

• understanding agency roles and responsibilites

• difcult circumstances

• contracts

• resolving problems

• and much more.

Managers are oten so busy that their own training needs get pushed

to one side. Yet good management and supervision skills should bea priority as they are essential or amily workers to succeed in thiscomplex and challenging feld o work.

Supervising amily and parenting workers: a short guide is acompanion guide to How to help amilies in trouble: a short guide – available at www.amilyandparenting.org/publications

supervising family and parenting workers

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