Publications from ODSW Social Work Supervsion | Page 30

Dialogue Session: Dilemmas in Social Work Supervision and the Way Forward

matching of supervisor and supervisee and also on the attitude of the supervisor when they
have this responsibility given to them. Prof. Tsui highlighted that based on his research, it
has been found that supervisors tend to recruit frontline workers who are similar to them in
thinking and personality, and they tend to look at factors such as appearances and styles.
They also make their decisions based on their ability to get along with them.
A/P Kieran mentioned that the challenge in supervision is the problem of choice. People
who can choose their supervisors are able to participate more fully in the supervision
relationship. However, more often than not, they do not have this choice and they have to
authorise their supervisor to supervise them. He claims that the key then is for supervisees
to professionalise up rather than personalise down. According to him, supervision is a
learning relationship and even in the case where supervisor and supervisee do not get
along with each other, they should still acknowledge that they are able to learn from one
another.
Dr Wong commented that although supervisors will always strive towards the idea of
‘goodness-of-fit’, it is not always obtainable and some supervisees do not always have a
choice of their supervisors. However, instead of getting oneself stuck with a dichotomous
position – fit or no fit, it will be helpful to consider how they may respond to the question
of ‘fit’. For example questions to think about include how one can increase the ‘goodnessof-fit’ by being sensitive to the developmental needs of supervisors and supervisees, as
well as the ideas of gender and culture. Ms Lee then concluded that it is more about
professional learning and how to make the learning fit for the supervisee rather than just
about whether one is able to get along with them.
Supervisors who are not social work trained
The second question raised was about the route of development to be taken when
working in agencies where the supervisors are not social work trained. A/P Kieran
responded that when the agency does not have sufficient staff available to help the
organisation develop its supervision practice, there may be a need for an external party to
be engaged. He mentioned that in New Zealand, external accredited social work
supervisors are engaged in agencies lacking social work trained supervisors. They not only
help through ensuring two-way confidentiality, but also in three-way accountability
between the agency and the external supervisor by giving mutual feedback. Prof. Tsui
added that in Hong Kong, there are 2 lists. In the counselling field, there are 80 certified
social work supervisors while in the social work field, there will be about 50 certified social
work supervisors. For some organizations (eg. special education schools), they engage
external supervisors who focus only on the educational and supportive aspects of
supervision, and not the administrative aspect.
Review of Supervision Practices
The final question was a request for the panellist to comment on how the review of
supervision is carried out in their countries. A/P Kieran commented that he has developed
a questionnaire where both supervisors and supervisees can review their practice together.
This questionnaire has a list of items that were derived from some research done on what
social workers thought were best things about supervision. Another way to review the
supervision process is to have an ongoing review at the end of a supervision session, where
supervisees would be asked to give their feedback and their learning points so that both
parties may reflect and gain insight regarding what could have been done differently. (eg.
how did you find what we did together today? what did you like? what could have been
done differently? what learning points are there for you and me?) Prof. Tsui mentioned that
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