Publications from ODSW Social Work Supervsion | Page 50

Workshop 2: Challenges and Responses of Social Work Supervisors with Managerial and Clinical Roles

Key Findings
Dr Wong reported various challenges experienced by social work supervisors with dual
roles and these challenges concerned the supervisor, as well as the management of the
organisation. The supervisor-related challenges are as follows:
1) Challenges with transiting to the new role or assuming headship
2) Tension between providing a “safe” supervisory relationship and ensuring
accountability.
3) Time management as supervisors seek to balance the time for their own cases and
the supervisees who would seek for their time to discuss cases, etc.
4) Lack of expertise in different social work domains. For many supervisors, they would
be good in only one or two areas but are now expected to be good at all areas.
5) Balancing different supervisory functions of administration, support and education.
6) Difficulties with maintaining personal and professional boundaries.
Organisational-related challenges include planning, introducing and managing
organisational changes, personnel issues, team management (challenge of team dynamics)
and management of internal and external expectations.

Dual Role Challenges
Two-thirds of the respondents merged the clinical and managerial roles into one while onethird split the roles. Dr Wong noted that those supervisors who merged the roles tended
to be from smaller agencies (single-centre agencies), who did so for practical reasons.
Other reasons cited include the preference to provide training to social workers and in
socialising them to the profession.
On the other hand, supervisors split their roles due to the perceived safety of supervisees
and to provide power imbalance for supervisors (i.e. they want to be in either role to
ensure that things get done).
“We split it more because that administrative function has an appraisal role, which,
in a sense, can create a threat when we talk about supervision, you know. The
safety and openness, I mean, that one we all know.” (FSC 12, Male)
“I felt that if, let’s say, this supervisor takes the role of both clinical and general, no
matter how objective they are, I felt that when it comes to appraisal, it will still be
not so objective. So because in the past, when I had two-in-one [supervisor], there
are some things which I don’t really want to share with them because I know this
person is also the one who appraises me. It probably disempower me as a person
to want to share with them.” (YO 3, Female)
Managing Dual Roles Challenges
Despite the difficulties that may arise with dual roles, social work supervisors manage
them through various methods, like
(a) Using different supervisory structure and specialist roles, e.g. engage
external supervisors; supervision for supervisors (peer group supervision)
(b) Maintaining role differentiation and clarity in different contexts, e.g. clarity
of role priority; role contextualisation. Some may use a different physical setting
when they use the different roles, e.g. using the office when taking on the
managerial role or using a counselling room when taking on the clinical role.

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