Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION I NTERNATIONAL S CIENTIFIC C ONFERENCE SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION: BENEFIT AND CHALLENGES OF FIELD PLACEMENT SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

LAYOUT Historical outlook Our days supervision Looking for personal way of supervisor practice 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). 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). SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

Social Work Supervision SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė Is as old as social work exists. Its development has been shaped by (1) practice environment and (2) the process of social work professionalization.

Historical outlook SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė Origins are generally argued to be administrative - Charity movements of late 19 th century. Persons, who supervised distribution of charity were named as a Supervisors.

Historical outlook SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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.

Historical outlook SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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.

Historical outlook SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė Since late 1970’s accountability (possibility to give explanation for one’s action) together with personal support ha ve been a dominant theme s 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.

Historical outlook SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė Since 1980’s t he 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.

Trends in supervision All methods found spase in supervision –Psychotherapy –Gestalt supervizija –Supervision based on Psychodrama –Constructive supervision 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. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

Nowadays supervision (Kessel, 2002): SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė is a complex method handled by well-trained supervisors who can apply supervision as a method to further the competence of self- reflection 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.

Nowadays supervision SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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).

Nowadays supervision SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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.

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). 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. 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. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

What is a supervision? SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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.

Supervision is asking questions and looking for answers. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

What is a supervision? SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė Supervision as dialog not means giving- getting advice. Dialog considers sharing experiences in work placements among supervisees, but not only. It considers getting emotional support, but not only.

Supervision as a strategic dialog SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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.

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 question- marks (kelti klaustukus) at the institutional level. These question-marks relates with supervision perspective, where questions are analyzed in complexity (Bernd Jansen, 2010). SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

Supervision as a strategic dialog SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė 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.

What is theoretical background of supervision as a dialog? SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė At first it is eclectic background. In that point supervision theory is very close with social work theory. Dialog presume interaction.

Origins of social constructionism Symbolic interactionism’ (Mead 1934) Ethnomethodology (since 1950) Phenomenology philosophy (Husserl 1975) and Schütz (1962-6) 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). 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). 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 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). 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). 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). SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS SUPERVISION Rasa Naujanienė

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