Publications from ODSW Social Work Supervsion | Page 44

Workshop 1: Group Supervision in Social Work Practice: A Systemic Approach

Discourses during Group Supervision
In group supervision, there are several guidelines that would be useful to follow so as to
facilitate effective group supervision. Firstly, each contribution should be treated as an
option, wher e there are no rights or wrongs. Secondly, the supervisor should promote cooperation rather than competition within the group. Thirdly, the supervisor should
participate in the conversation rather than pronouncing or owning the right answers. Lastly,
the supervisor should promote the competence of supervisees but without withholding the
supervisor’s expertise. In group discussion, it is also crucial for the supervisor not just to
tend to the presenter’s goals, but also to the group goals at large.

Modes of Group Supervision
There are several modes of group supervision. Firstly, the supervisor can supervise the
individual with the group members as the audience. Secondly, group supervision can occur
in the form of participative group supervision where the supervisor supervises and invites
the member’s participation. Thirdly, there can be co-operative group supervision. This
occurs where the supervisor facilitates the group in learning to supervise each other. Lastly,
there can be peer group supervision with no one designated supervisor. It is paramount
that the supervisor first finds out what is useful for the group that he or she is supervising
before picking the form of group supervision.
Mobilising Group Members
Ms Chua indicated that there are several ways that a supervisor may mobilise group
members for participation in supervision to generate learning among themselves. Firstly,
the supervisor can make use of OCQ, which represents Observation, Comments and
Questions. By using OCQ, the supervisor may elicit responses or participation from the
members to facilitate their learning. Comments (offering an opinion) given should be
based on observations so that things are objective and not subjective. Secondly, the
supervisor may also choose to use role-playing to encourage participation. For instance,
they may role-play the role of client and therapist. Third, they may also make use of a
reflecting team. The supervisor allows the group members to reflect among themselves.
One of the key rules is to have affirming and generative inputs. They may talk about their
struggles and dilemmas with empathy and suggest alternatives. Lastly, the different group
members can also take up different positions in order to invite curiosity. For instance, each
group member takes on the role of clients that the presenter is working with and will help
to reflect what each client may be thinking with regards to the presenter’s intervention.
Case Study
Ms Lo also made use of a case study to better illustrate the use of group supervision. She
played a clip of a group supervision session comprising a mid-career switch social worker, a
senior social worker, a fresh graduate social worker and a supervisor. She then told the
participants to break up into groups to discuss some key issues.
Ms Lo began by asking what some of the supervisor’s challenges might have been and if
there were any ways to resolve it. One participant expressed that the goals of the
individual and the group as a whole were unclear and that resulted in the team becoming
quite lost. He expressed that it might have been helpful to begin by establishing goals. A
second participant expressed that the group appeared directionless as people began to
talk about their own experiences and that it would have been good to have established
ground rules as a group. Another participant shared that it was unclear when the
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