How do new practitioners come to understand and effectively use supervision?

Abstract

This project investigated how new practitioners come to understand and effectively use supervision. It was based on a collaborative inquiry with supervisors and new practitioners who had met for supervision, and who volunteered to reflect on their experiences in relation to the research question. In particular the study explored how four participating new practitioners had been inducted into supervision during their studies and in their employment after graduating.

The ways new practitioners induction experiences contributed to an understanding and use of supervision were investigated using a bricolage of narrative, action research and interviewing methods. Participants were invited into a co-research position to meet together in their supervisory pairs and explore their responses to starter questions provided to them. These audiotaped conversations were then witnessed by me and responded to in the form of a letter sent back to participants with further questions for the participating pairs to engage with in a follow up conversation.

The study highlighted the challenges new practitioners experience in developing understandings of what supervision is. Whilst a review of literature found attention by authors to the need to prepare new practitioners for supervision, this research found this was not reflected in the new practitioners' experiences of induction to supervision.

Knowledges produced by this research highlight the important role supervisor's play in assisting the development of understanding and use of supervision and a need for further discussion and professional education about supervision for both supervisors and new practitioners.