What is Supervision? The Views of Child and Family Social Workers and Supervisors in England

The importance of supervision is largely taken for granted within social work. Yet it can often seem as if policy-based descriptions what ‘should be’ are disconnected from the realities practice. In this study, we sought to understand perspectives workers and supervisors about for. Interviews were undertaken with (n = 56) 10) in one authority England between September 2018 March 2019. We identified three functions – accountability, emotional support providing a different perspective. Supervisors expected be constantly available their staff yet had insufficient time engage they considered reflective discussions. Supervision was primarily mechanism worker education being much more ad-hoc functions. These findings suggest that while not wholly negative case management approaches supervision, there pressing need define reflection clearly articulate looks like practice how else, via enabled statutory services children families.