Listen to thisI have been trying to write this editorial for a few
weeks now. I have known I needed to do it. I have thought about it. I
even told others that I had to do it thinking that somehow that would
spur me on to get it done.
But other things keep coming up. Other things that seem more demanding,
more immediate, more relevant, more ... well, you know ... just more
important than getting this written. Like there was the day when the
circuit breaker blew and I had to go get a new one and install it. Or
the day when the drains blocked, or the weatherman predicted snow and I
hadn’t picked up all my tools from the garden. And then there were the
days when I had to go shopping (we always need food), and the times when
the dogs demanded to be walked, or my spouse wanted me to make dinner,
or ... well, there was that day when the futon was calling me to nap in
the middle of the afternoon.
Finally, I was writing to my friend Brian, telling him about this and
suddenly I thought “How like doing supervision, my behaviour is”. There
is always something else which demands out attention, isn’t there? The
kids in crisis, the payroll, the scheduling, the program development
plan, the team meeting, that call from a social worker – daily life in
working with troubled kids and their families. There is always a reason,
justifiable and important, which keeps us from supervision. And if you
are the one who some call the “supervisee”, well then there are even
more reasons not to meet for supervision, aren’t there?
But that’s only a part of the reason. It is not just that we have other
things to occupy us, but also that we are often unsure about what we
should be doing in supervision. And, like all things, when we are
unsure, we are hesitant. So, what is it we should be doing in
supervision? What should be our focus? What should it look like?
There are probably as many models for supervision as there are forms of
helping. In fact, it often seems to me that the form which supervision
takes is modeled after the form of helping. Someone whose work requires
them to meet with families every two weeks, for example, might meet in a
supervision meeting once every two weeks. People who work with groups
might engage in group supervision. What I am suggesting here is that the
form of supervision, in many cases, parallels the form of practice. But
in Child and Youth Care practice, we seem to want to borrow the form for
our supervision from other forms of practice. Let’s think about this for
a moment.
It is becoming more and more widely accepted that Child and Youth Care
practice involves the utilization of everyday life events as they are
occurring (Garfat, 1998, 1999). We talk about “being with” youth as they
live their lives (Fewster, 1990), “counselling on the go” (Krueger,
1991), using the “minutiae” of everyday life experiencing (Maier, 1981),
the importance of “immediacy” (Guttman, 1991), or “interactive practice” (Krueger, 1998). In essence, we talk about being with children, youth
and families as they live their lives, where they live those lives, and
intervening as that living is occurring.
So, why should the Child and Youth Care approach to supervision not look
the same as the Child and Youth Care approach to intervention? It seems
to me that supervisors who engage in real parallel practice, where the
approach to, and form of, supervision models the form and approach of
effective practice, help their staff to learn that approach. So,
whatever your approach to Child and Youth Care practice is, wouldn’t it
just make sense that your approach to supervision should be the same?
For example, if you believe in the utilization of everyday life events
as they are occurring, then this would have certain implications for
supervision in your program. It would mean, for example, that the
supervisor would need to be present when the Child and Youth Care worker
was intervening with youth. It might also mean that supervisory
interventions are short and focused on the immediate. If your approach
to Child and Youth Care practice involves a focus on the relationship
between the worker and the youth, then supervision would also attend to
the relationship between the supervisor and the worker. If your approach
is defined by developmentally appropriate interventions, then
supervisory interactions would take in to consideration the
developmental level of the Child and Youth Care worker. If your approach
involves modeling new ways for youth, then ... well, you get the point.
Supervisory interactions can be an opportunity to help workers learn
about the “doing” of their work through experiencing a similar process
in the relationship with their supervisor. It is also a way in which the
program values and approach can be experienced by the worker, not just
talked about in meetings. When there is incongruence between the program
approach to Child and Youth Care and what the worker experiences in
relationship with the supervisor, then confusion walks through the door.
And practice suffers.
By the way, if you keep putting off supervision, don’t be surprised if
the Child and Youth Care workers put off those interventions with the
young people or families. After all, people do tend to practice what
they experience.
References
Fewster, G. (1990). Being in child care: A journey into self. New York: Haworth.
Garfat, T. (1998). The effective Child and Youth Care intervention: A phenomenological inquiry. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 12(1&2), 5–178.
Garfat, T. (1999). On reading about the Child and Youth Care approach. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 13(1), vii–viii.
Guttman, E. (1991). Immediacy in residential Child and Youth Care work: The fusion of experience, self-consciousness, and action. In J. Beker & Z. Eisikovits (Eds.), Knowledge utilization in residential Child and Youth Care practice (pp. 65–84). Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America.
Krueger, M.A. (1991). Coming from your center, being there, meeting them where they’re at, interacting together, counselling on the go, creating circles of caring, discovering and using self, and caring for one another: Central themes in professional Child and Youth Care. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 5(1), 77–87.
Krueger, M. (1998). Interactive youth work practice. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America.
Maier, H. (1981). Essential component in care and treatment environments for children. In F. Ainsworth & L. Fulcher (Eds.), Group care for children: Concepts and issues (pp. 19–70). London: Tavistock.
This feature: Garfat, T. (2001). Editorial: Congruence between supervision and practice. Journal of Child and Youth Care. 15(2), iii-iv.
