International Conference 2024 | Contemporary Supervision in Social Work

The 10th International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health (ICSWHMH) was held in November 2024 in Melbourne. This significant event in successfully brought together social work professionals, researchers, educators, and students from around the world to discuss and share the latest developments in the field of social work in health and mental health.

Recording 1

Building Our Capability: Introduction to Best Practice for Supervision

Presenter: Dr Anita Morris (Australia, VIC)

The session discusses a supervision best practice professional development course and describes how supervision is evolving to meet complex practice and workforce needs. Those who view this recording will experience new or renewed interest in supervision professional development and insights into contemporary social work supervision themes and practices.

Recording 2

Exploring Social Workers Lived Experience in Supervision: A Different Kind of Trauma Informed Practice

Presenters: Ms Carolyn Cousins (Australia, NSW)

This session will explore findings from interviews with social workers who have lived experience of the mental health system. It will consider how they make sense of their own experiences in relation to their work within the system, and decisions they have made as to whether to reveal this to their supervisors or not. The interviews confirm that as the system has increasing integrated peer workers, employed for their lived experience, this has raised questions for those carrying their own experience as to where their own expertise might fit. The session will be useful for supervisors and social workers who wish to explore how to integrate lived experience discussions into supervision in safe, trauma informed ways. It will ask participants to consider the risks, boundaries and benefits of exploring lived experience in supervision, as well as propose the organisational conditions required to make this discussion possible.

Trauma informed supervision aims to equip social workers manage vicarious trauma which means that supervision will increasingly need to explore the impacts of lived experience. Agreed ways to do this are not clear and this session hopes to progress the dialogue.

Recording 3

Exploring the Expectations, Practices and Challenges in Social Work Supervision: Insights from Medical Social Workers (MSWs) in Singapore

Presenters: Dr Man Yi Lau (Singapore)

This session will unravel the complex dynamics of social work supervision within a hospital setting in Singapore. Delving into the real world of Medical Social Workers (MSWs), our study aims to uncover the expectations, practices, challenges, and coping strategies of both MSW supervisees and supervisors. Additionally, we aim to provide insights that can help shape the future trajectory of social work supervision practices. By adopting the lens of MSW supervisees and supervisors, we have unmasked the complexities of supervision in the real world: from diverse expectations to the poignant struggles of reconciling ideals with realities. We also observed practitioners’ whirlwinds of emotions and were impressed by their resilience and innovative strategies in navigating the demands and challenges in supervision. In this engaging session, we want to spark discussion in the landscape of social work supervision and practice quality, promoting practitioners’ well-being, and inspiring future collaboration.

Recording 4

Supporting New Social Work Supervisors in a Singapore Hospital

Presenters: Ms Yuen Mei Won Dorcas (Singapore)

In the dynamic environment of a fast-paced hospital, transitioning to the role of a Social Work Supervisor presents unique challenges. New supervisors often grapple with feelings of inadequacy as they step into this role. The urgency of patient care, constant demands, and rapid decision-making can intensify the learning curve for new supervisors. Despite these challenges, targeted training programme to equip supervisors becomes paramount. This session will outline a comprehensive training programme for new supervisors, designed to support their learning needs and equip them with knowledge of supervision theories, practical processes, effective communication skills for engaging supervisees and self-care in the supervisory role. The programme not only supports new social work supervisors, it marks a pivotal point in their professional growth and contributed to building a competent supervisory workforce in the hospital.

Recording 5

Trauma Informed Support and Supervision: A Model to Support Social Workers Working with Children and Families Where Child Protection Concerns Are Present

Presenters: Dr Fiona Oates (Australia, QLD)

Working with children, young people and families where child protection concerns are present is one of the most complex fields of social work practice. While exposure to occupational trauma is an occupational inevitability, organisations have struggled to adequately provide for the wellbeing needs of social workers in their employ. Struggles pertaining to wellbeing are established in the literature as a key reason for social workers leaving their positions, contributing to workforce churn across jurisdictions.

This presentation seeks to explore the experience of occupational trauma, what it is and what the symptoms might look like in the workplace. The TISS (Trauma Informed Support and Supervision) model will be introduced as an alternative to traditional social work supervision practices. The TISS model framework is trauma-informed, evidence-based, and practitioner-centred. The model acknowledges the uniqueness of practice environments within social work, the importance of locational and organisational context and is designed to be responsive to the needs of the individual practitioner.

Key learnings include that although exposure to occupational trauma is an inevitability, scaffolded supervision and support models can be implemented as an early intervention strategy as well as a framework to support social workers during and post their experience of occupational trauma symptomology.

AASW Credentials: Supervision