Keith was the manager of an NGO in a regional city which provided community-based services to people who had mental health problems. He was a
graduate of an Australian university, and had come to social work later in life, bringing a background in research and writing. Having worked in both government and non- government organisations, he preferred what he perceived as the greater freedom of working in an NGO. He had close ties to the local university and had made a point of providing placements to students for two reasons: which the organisation offered an uncommon and, in his eyes important learning experience for students in this city, and which the students offered a valuable resource to the organisation, particularly in implementing its research agenda. He held a position of manager and social work supervisor for all the students who were placed at the agency. He had been supervising students for 10 years and drew on his experiences over that time as he discussed his approach to supervision.
Simone was a student in the final year of a Master of Social Work (Qualifying) degree and had a prior degree in psychology. Keith found her to be a particularly capable and engaged student.
In keeping with the methodology of the study, Keith used the video tape as a prompt to explain his views on supervision, the strategies he had used in the session and his views on theory in practice. In the videotaped session, Keith was discussing with Simone two reports she had written at the conclusion of her placement. He explained that he was using this discussion as a means of bringing her placement to a conclusion:
So the two things we focused on were the piece of research that she had been doing, as part of the placement which is around school non-attendance, for young people who may be experiencing issues around anxiety and depression and the other part of the placement was around the development of the model of care within the mental health team which she is working in and we were giving them an evidence base essentially. These were the two pieces of work. The other two pieces of work we reviewed yesterday previously. (Keith, Field Educator) Keith held it to be important to acknowledge that these students were adult learners. To foster this learning, he adopted a facilitative role, assisting social work students to complete the placement successfully, and adopting an adult education
process engaging the student through cooperative planning and mutual responsibility for the work undertaken.
This meant in practice developing the student’s learning contract together, so that the objectives of both the student and the organisation would be addressed, and working primarily in a facilitative capacity, with such directive input as he considered needed:
… with every placement, I start out with students to let them know that our key goal is to get them through this placement, with their full engagement, and their enthusiasm, around making the most of the opportunity to learn and participate in the life of the organisation. (Keith, Field Educator)
He indicated that in his supervision it was important that he recognise that each student was different, arriving with different resources and approaches to contribute, rather than [he] being the only one who has the skills and knowledge and ability to address the issues. Among these differences, he identified that learning came more easily for some students than for others. Accordingly, he would adjust his style of supervision for different students, with their varying experiences and levels of education and maturity. He saw his responsibility as being to ask questions and facilitate
discussion; the student’s role was to present him with her experience and her analysis of where she was up to in the placement, what had she learned, what assistance she needed and where she was going next in her work. As part of this approach, he also sought each student’s feedback about how the agency worked:
… to be a new set of eyes, um to give me feedback about what they see in the organisation that we may in some way learn from. (Keith, Field Educator) He considered that Simone was conceptually quick, well informed and capable, which enabled him to work in a very collegial way with her. He described the session being discussed as representative of their way of working together, saying:
That’s typical of the supervision sessions with Simone. In so far as my role is to ask questions and facilitate discussion, her role is to um, to present me with her experience and her perception of, or analysis of [her findings] and what we essentially do is where is she currently up to in the placement, what has she learned, what assistance does she need and where is she going next? We had a normal discussion around that. With someone like Simone it’s very easy to have a free ranging hour-long sort of discussion about the placement, and then you wrap into that the bits which she needs to do in terms of the learning agreement … and how do we do that in a fairly seamless kind of way, but always knowing that we’re touching on it in some way throughout the discussion. (Keith, Field Educator)
Keith had found some students much easier to work with because they ‘will come ready to engage, others want to be filled rather than share what they’re full of and so they become more difficult’. He illustrated this with an experience of one student with whom he negotiated a compromise agreement about the learning contract, which had not satisfied the university; ultimately, the student withdrew from the degree.
He illustrated this further when he spoke of the differences he had encountered between MS(Q) students and those who came to study without this prior learning:
The level of guidance required is a lot less. Again, someone who’s got a high level of initiative, conceptually very strong—able to grasp what the issue is, able to go out and do independent research, do the desk top research independently, no issues with engaging with key stakeholders, person to person, and very highly organised. So that was a really big difference. We’ve had undergraduate students, whom I had to give really a lot of guidance to and nudge along and they have been the students, I suppose, who are really clear about the
requirements for success in the course rather than the outcomes of the placement. (Keith, Field Educator)
But he also maintained an evaluative position noting that:
If things are not going well they need to know early and we’ve got to do something about it. (Keith, Field Educator)
The data from the session review revealed that Keith saw the role of theory in practice as very important. He considered it to be critical to combine practice with some social work theory, as the prism through which a social worker analysed an issue. He saw this prism as extending beyond simply critical analysis in the workplace to a way of seeing the world. He recognised that there were a range of values ‘wrapped up’ in theories:
I think is really important in every aspect of our lives, whether it be in terms of how we look at … social events or phenomena or how we read stories in the paper, and make sense of them through our theoretical or analytical lens if you like, that it’s honed from our practice as social workers and our development of values and ethics and the ideologies I suppose—theories or ideologies which we develop, to guide our practice. (Keith, Field Educator)
To address this, he ensured that:
… we discussed the importance of theory and then talked about its application and then analysed and applied it to … her paid work, or the focus of the research … obviously we’re guided through this through the learning agreement which is about looking at a lot of those things, and so … it’s about knowing … what the profession is looking for … in its burgeoning professionals. (Keith, Field Educator)
Essentially what we were discussing throughout the supervision was around the process by which she would write up the interviews. Also I suppose exploring some of the issues raised by young people and how she wanted to present those in her research report. It also allowed us to have some discussion around some of the social work theories which she might want to include—(ones which) identify not only her role but also the experience of young people, their experience of their engagement with education, which in the main was around alternative education, rather than mainstream education and some of the issues at work occurring for them. At the end of it I was trying to focus discussion on the social work theory and the application to her research, and its inclusion in the report. So whilst a lot of it was around the process of gathering information and identifying some of the issues for young people and how they might best be presented in the report, it was also a discussion around key factors which made for a person’s successful transition through this process. What were some of the key indicators which would support that successful outcome if you like, and what were their prevalence, in the young people that she’d been speaking with. (Keith, Field Educator)
The strategies used by Keith in the session were directed in part by the context of community-based mental health service and his position of external supervisor. This meant he had responsibility for the social work dimension of Simone’s learning, and not for the administrative supervision. His primary strategy was facilitative, building on Simone’s ability and turning to more direct approaches as he judged were needed. As a consequence of his primary stance towards supervision, he adopted a collegial approach with Simone, using inductive questioning and prompting, reverting to nudging and more active processes when she had failed to include theoretical concepts in her report.
Context shaped Keith’s supervision as he identified areas he thought important to foster in students working in the mental health field:
My role, as I said, when I spoke with you yesterday, I haven’t read any sort of journal articles on supervision, my role is to ensure that students who come in the placement here are aware of their critical role which they play as
professionals and the things which are really important to me the sort of knowledge, I mean, one that’s really important is obviously the social work ethics, the Code of Ethics, and that they are aware, and that they actually in some way internalise those principles and ethics … This is really important, the notion of the use of self. I mean placing themselves in a situation and [to
recognise] the role which they play in and what comes with that is this notion of critical self-awareness which I think is important—that people are aware of the impact which they have in any situation which they play, particularly
professionally. And the last one is, which I think is really important is this overall critical analysis, in every aspect of our lives, whether it be in terms of how we look at sort of social events or phenomena or how we read stories in the paper, and make sense of them through our theoretical or analytical lens if you like, which it’s honed from our practice as social workers and our development of values and ethics and the ideologies I suppose—theories or ideologies which we develop, to guide our practice. (Keith, Field Educator)
He considered that on placement it was important that a student became aware of their role as social workers. He deliberately incorporated a reflexive approach into the work, so that the student became aware of the impact which they had in any situation in which they played a part and gained the knowledges they would need for practice:
I’ve taken a very deliberate approach to having those discussions throughout the placement. For instance in doing research it’s … thinking about what’s my relationship with the young people which I’ve been researching, what’s my relationship with a school pastoral care advisor, what’s my relationship with the education provider: so she’s very much aware of the role which she plays and the position which she comes from as a practitioner and how she may influence any interaction. (Keith, Field Educator)
The videotaped session revealed that the discussion between Keith and Simone about her research report covered social justice, power, discrimination and discourse. He saw this acknowledgement of power as one way in which social work differentiated itself from psychology (this student’s undergraduate degree):
We’ve had discussion about that as well and about movements which are
focused on shifting the discourse to others. So it’s around having these necessary discussions around theory and practice. (Keith, Field Educator)
Keith identified in Simone’s learning a new awareness of recovery:
Because she may not have had this focus on the notion of recovery prior to working in the team which she is in now. I find this a nice cross over, because in our supervision discussions we’ve talked about how, what did she take from the placement which she can use within her own work setting. Working in mental health specifically has been new for her … And it’s interesting because she
starts talking about the notion of recovery now through this research, for young people which may not have been in her vocabulary beforehand. (Keith, Field Educator)
In the exchange about school refusal in the videotaped session, it was evident that Keith’s use of a facilitative strategy moved the exchange about school refusal from a personal problem, as defined by other agencies, to a social issue located in a set of social systems, beyond simply the student. Together in the supervision session, Keith and Simone shaped it as an issue relating to disempowerment, lack of voice and
labelling. But the discussion did not extend to any consideration of structural issues and how these might have contributed to the problem.
Keith explained why at one stage in the review of the session, he had pressed Simone to think about social work theories. Drawing on his experience, he stated that she was one of two Master of Social Work (Qualifying) students with whom he had worked, both with a prior degree in psychology and both weaker in their knowledge of social work theory and ideology. Simone had identified a number of psychological theories which she found reflected her research findings, for example, a school refusal assessment scale, social learning theory, the impact of environment and psychoanalytic theory. As a consequence, Simone made a connection between concepts of
postmodernism and power, which she had used in a presentation earlier in her placement.
Specifically, Keith saw theories as guiding practice. He spoke of taking different theories and applying them to different forms of social work. He spoke too of how theories give rise to different ways of analysing a situation and how different approaches will follow in practice. Yet, while using the word ‘applying’ theories to practices, his approach in the session had been inductive. He invited Simone to name
theories which she had seen evidenced in the research, not the other way round. With her, as with all students, he considered it was critical to combine the research with social work theory, to re-enforce it in the report. It complemented her learning and addressed the requirements of the placement:
Because whilst it’s a good piece of research, I suppose my experience of research is about finding articles which support the work that you’re doing, and confirm an approach that you might want to, or a view that you might want to take. But I think, whilst that’s good, as a social work placement it’s really critical to combine that with some social work theory (so as) to re-enforce the social work theory in the research that she’s doing … it complements her
learning in the placement and addresses the requirements of the placement rather than to think of the research as being a static piece of research but about having a professional social work perspective on the research as well. (Keith, Field Educator)
Context was also evident in the emphasis Keith gave to summing up Simone’s second piece of research into articulating the model of care used by one of the mental health teams. He described it as:
… a piece of evidence-based model of care which clearly articulates their approach to their work. It’s also that notion of, it’s a model of care built upon evidence, which is probably the strongest part of it. (Keith, Field Educator) Perhaps Keith’s view of placement was summarised in his comment that: Our concern is around the early onset of mental ill health and, I believe that there is a growing role for professional education around social work and mental health. Actually I believe there is need for a specific unit, within (social work)
education around mental health and social work practice essentially. (Keith, Field Educator)