2010.05.07.
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION: BENEFIT AND CHALLENGES OF FIELD PLACEMENT
SUPERVISION
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE
PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS
SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
LAYOUT
• Historical outlook
• Our days supervision
• Looking for personal way of
supervisor practice
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
What is a supervision?
• Literally, the word supervision means to
“oversee the actions or work of a person”
(Freeth, 2001).
• It derives from the Latin super “over“ and
“videre” to watch, to see” (Kadushin, 1976, 19).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
What is a supervision?
“An educational process in which a person
with a certain equipment of knowledge
and skill takes responsibility for training
a person with less equipment” (Robinson,
1936, 53).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Social Work Supervision
Is as old as social work exists.
Its development has been shaped by
(1) practice environment and
(2) the process of social work
professionalization.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Historical outlook
• Origins are generally argued to be
administrative - Charity movements of
late 19th century. Persons, who
supervised distribution of charity were
named as a Supervisors.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Historical outlook
•Educational focus developed between 1910’s
to 1920’s when social work education moved
from industry to Universities.
•The integration of psychoanalytic theory
supported the development of supervision’s
educational focus; especially case work
practice in social work and supervision
became traditionally case analysis.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Historical outlook
• In 1950’s to 1970’s the emphasis of
psychoanalytic theory shifted supervisory
focus from the work to worker. The
understanding that a social worker by itself
is the main instrument for intervention.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Historical outlook
• Since late 1970’s accountability (possibility
to give explanation for one’s action)
together with personal support have been a
dominant themes in social work supervision
literature.
• New insights into the supervisory context.
Not only agency but dynamic interaction
among client, worker, supervisor and
agency systems at the personal and social
levels.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Historical outlook
• Since 1980’s the contextual supervision
approach provides a framework through
which the reflective conversation can
examine, deconstruct and reconstruct
client’s, supervisee’s and supervisor’s and
agencies narratives within parties of social
realities.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Trends in supervision
• All methods found spase in supervision
– Psychotherapy
– Gestalt supervizija
– Supervision based on Psychodrama
– Constructive supervision
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Modern trends
• Supervision found necessity to separate
supervision from therapy.
• Supervisor is defined as active consultant in
working with probelms coming from
professional work field.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Nowadays supervision (Kessel, 2002):
• is a complex method handled by well-trained
supervisors who can apply supervision as a
method to further the competence of selfreflection of professional workers and for
leadership in different sectors of service and
labor.
• Supervisors do their work in different
settings, at different system levels and in
different organizational contexts.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Nowadays supervision
• has separated itself from practice training
and from work/task oriented guiding in
organizations.
• Supervision as a professional service, has no
unambiguous meaning, which depends on
historical and contextual influences, and on
the choice of particular paradigmatic views
(Kessel, 2002).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Nowadays supervision
• is a method of consultation of professional
performance.
• During supervision person reflect his/her
practice and have abilities to evaluate his/her
performance within organization.
• Develop multidimensional capability to
conceive professional situations and consciously
use yourself as instrument of intervention.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Why do we need supervision?
• There are many wrong solution in work. It
happens because many reasons:
• Inaccurate information (klaidinga informacija) or
inaccurate understanding of information
(klaidingas informacijos apdorojimas)
• Personal characteristics (asmeninės žmonių
ypatybės).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Why do we need supervision?
• Not ability to find strategies or not seeing
possibilities how to apply them (neradimas
strategijų arba neradimas galimybių kaip jas
pritaikyti)
• Interconection in various power relations
(Susisaistymas su įvairiausiomis galiomis) and
other.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
What is a supervision?
Supervision is a dialog. Dialog which occur not
accidently, not in chatting with friends in
cafe, not in meeting social worker with client
and not in employee meeting with boss.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
What is a supervision?
Supervision is a dialog which occurs in the
formal occasions:
• Supervisee meeting with supervisor. That is
called – individual supervision.
• Group of employees as supervisee (usually
from different organizations) meeting with
supervisor. That is called – group supervision.
• Team of employees as supervisee (usually
from one organization) meeting with supervisor.
That is called – team supervision.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Supervision is asking questions and looking for
answers.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
What is a supervision?
Supervision as dialog not means givinggetting advice.
Dialog considers sharing experiences in work
placements among supervisees, but not only.
It considers getting emotional support, but
not only.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Supervision as a strategic dialog
Dialog about supervisee job situations and
development of plan, strategic plan how to
move forward in work activities that:
To work more effectively,
To feel better in work life.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Supervision as a strategic dialog
• It doesn’t matter in which area person works (social
work, education, health care and etc.), the
employee needs talker (pašnekovo) with whom
he/she could challenge own solutions in work
(kvestionuoti savo sprendimus).
• Good work and good solutions could be made only
in that case if there is possibility to put a questionmarks (kelti klaustukus) at the institutional level.
• These question-marks relates with supervision
perspective, where questions are analyzed in
complexity (Bernd Jansen, 2010).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Supervision as a strategic dialog
It needs time to develop:
• plan to move forward
• competence to reflect practical situation
• to become self-reflective for ability to
develop strategic plans not only during
supervision sessions.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
What is theoretical background of supervision
as a dialog?
At first it is eclectic background.
In that point supervision theory is very
close with social work theory.
Dialog presume interaction.
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Origins of social constructionism
• Symbolic interactionism’ (Mead 1934)
• Ethnomethodology (since 1950)
• Phenomenology philosophy (Husserl 1975)
and Schütz (1962-6)
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Assumptions for discursive approach on social
work and supervision
• Social work as well as supervision is a
socially constructed activities.
• The way we talk about our practice is
actually part of our practice (Hawkins et al.
2001).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Key assumptions in social constructionism
• Reality is a social construct which is an effect
of social processes through which people
‘come to describe, explain or […] account for
the world including themselves in which they
live’ (Gergen 2003, 15).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Key themes in social constructionism
• A critical stance towards taken-for-granted
knowledge.
• Language. Language as a form of social action.
• Multiplicity. A focus on interaction, social
practices and on processes.
• Context. Historical and cultural specifity of
knowledge
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Language
• Language is one interaction and it is actually the
main kind through which people construct what
it is considered “truth” at any given moment.
• We need to study language in order to study
anything at all (de Shazer 1993, 84).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Multiplicity
• The idea that social constructionism is an
ongoing process which occurs through
interaction prompts an idea that these shared
and “negotiated” understandings about “reality”
could take on a wide variety of forms.
• It leads to an assumption that numerous
possible “social constructions” dependent on
time and place of the world could be considered.
Each different construction relates with a
different kind of action by a human being
(Parton & Marshall 1998, 241).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
Context
• Social constructionists “share the view that
context organizes meaning” (Gubrium &
Holstein 1999, 291).
• They argue that the ways in which people
commonly understand the world and the
categories and concepts they use to explain the
world are historically and culturally specific
(Burr 1995, 3-4).
2010.05.21.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION
Rasa Naujanienė
AČIŪ UŽ DĖMESĮ! / THANK YOU!
KVIETIMAS
Į SUPERVIZORIŲ IR KOUČERIŲ RENGIMO
PROGRAMĄ
2010-2012 metai
Besidominčius prašome kreiptis tel.: 8686 30573; 8 (37)
327846 arba registruotis iki š.m. rugsėjo 10 d. arba
el.paštu: r.naujaniene@sgf.vdu.lt
2010.05.21.