Transcript for
Supervision for children’s wellbeing – part two
Nicholas Barrington (00:00): Doing that kind of stepping in the shoes of in supervision better equips practitioners to be in the room with multiple people to remain curious about what’s happening for them at any given moment within a conversation, within a session, within a space, and hopefully have a model or experience by which to draw on where they can foster that and invite that same curiosity with the families that they work.
Narrator (00:32): Welcome to the Emerging Minds Podcast.
Dan Moss (00:37): Hi, everyone. My name is Dan Moss. Welcome to episode two of this two-part Emerging Mind podcast on supervision for children’s wellbeing. Recently, Emerging Minds worked closely with a group of supervisors from the Bouverie Centre in Melbourne to develop an online practice course for supervisors and organisations who are interested in child-aware and child-focused supervision. This course can be found on the Emerging Minds website on www.emergingminds.com.au, and the course is called Supervision for children’s wellbeing.
(01:11): So a little bit about the Bouverie Centre. They’re an integrated practise researcher organisation that’s been bringing family therapy to Australia to promote healthy relationships in families, organisations, and communities since 1956. As part of their practise, Bouverie Centre professionals are interested in supervision processes that bring the voice of the child into the room during case discussions, but also that engage families, including parents and caregivers, in respectful and generative ways.
(01:44): In episode two of this podcast, our guests from Bouverie Centre will discuss the role of the supervisor in working with practitioners who work specifically in child and family services. Our friends from Bouverie will describe their own experiences in supporting engaging practice that supports all members of the family, and that increases the reflective skill and self-awareness of the practitioner in helping children and families to overcome challenge in their lives.
(02:13): Throughout this podcast, you’ll be hearing from Hanna Jewell, who is a social worker and a family therapist and has led the Bouverie Centre’s partnership with Emerging Minds to create both the online course and the podcast that you’ll be listening to today. Banu Moloney has been a therapist and lecturer at the Bouverie Centre for over 16 years. Banu has a long history in supervision and has created processes and strategies that help all practitioners to keep the child in focus in all engagement settings. Julia Oxley is a mental health occupational therapist and family therapist who has vast experience across both adult and family-focused services. Angie Nyland is a social worker and trainer at the Bouverie Centre. Nicholas Barrington is a psychiatric nurse in family therapy who has worked at the Bouverie Centre since 2019.
(03:03): In module two of the online course that Emerging Minds and Bouverie Centre have created, you’ll be introduced to Felicity. Felicity is a practitioner that has become frustrated by a mother in her work with both the mother and the child. As part of this, Hanna describes her supervision strategies in helping practitioners to notice if they’re becoming frustrated or even overwhelmed in their work and the effects that this might have on their clients or even some of the questions that this frustration might disqualify.
Hanna Jewell (03:35): This is one of those moments in supervision where someone is describing someone and then, all of a sudden, there’s a sort of change in their disposition or their kind of emotional intensity around how they’re describing it. And maybe they say things in a more blameful way that isn’t part of how they would normally talk. You pick up the change, I guess, in how they’re kind of describing or telling you about the family. And so I think they’re the kind of moments as a clinical supervisor you might pick, I’m like, “Oh, Felicity, I’ve just kind of noticed you’re talking in a very different way than what you normally would about this parent. I’m just wondering, are we able to explore that for a moment? I’m just really curious about what might be happening for you.”
(04:25): And I think it’s kind of that sense of that feedback too, because maybe she’s not noticing that she’s doing that, and that could be part of your question. I just want to point this out. “Have you noticed that? What’s happening for you? Help me understand. It’s sounding like you’re feeling something different towards this client than how you would normally. And knowing your work and how empathic you are with people, this seems a bit out of the picture or doesn’t kind of fit, and I’m just wondering what… For me, that doesn’t kind of make sense. Are you okay?”
(05:05): With that checking in, “Are you okay? If we just chat a little bit about that, and will you let me know if it doesn’t feel comfortable? And I’m, yeah, just really curious to hear what might be happening for you at this point in time, and whether there’s something we can do today that might be helpful around that kind of feeling, and whether in some ways it gets in the way of the work or not. I think it’d be really interesting to kind of think about what it is. But yeah, help me understand what’s happening for you at this point in time.”
Dan Moss (05:38): We know that work with children and families can be challenging for all practitioners no matter how skilled or experienced. That feeling of immediacy for change for the benefit of the child can become very strong and might even have us work in a pace which is too fast for the child or family. Julia described how she works with practitioners in her own supervisory practise to help them consider the context of the family with whom they work and slow down their practise so that they can really understand the context of each individual family member.
Julia Oxley (06:12): Clinicians have a strong sense of their client, or practitioners have a strong sense of their client. And they really often align strongly with their client, and they want the best for them. So it’s honouring that in a clinician that gives a lovely opportunity to be able to privilege the parenting role in a client. And to be able to do that allows us to then think about what our own anxieties or worries are about asking, inquiring about parenting, and to be able to think about it in a way and to use the existing skills that a practitioner can have to even just start to inquire, to make sense of, to get a sense of what their concerns, if there are any concerns, but just to be able to paint a picture. If a clinician comes in with an assumption that there’s going to be concerns about their parenting, that’s going to be fairly obvious to the client. And that’s the last thing a parent wants to hear is that someone assumes that they’ve got concerns or they are not always doing it right.
(07:15): So I think that that notion of curiosity, of just asking, just showing some interest, showing genuine interest will usually speak to the client because, more than likely, the most important people in their life are their children. And if we can connect with that, then it gives a bit of an opening. So it doesn’t mean that the practitioner has to have some really quick clever parenting advice, but even just understanding who their children are. “What do they do? What are their favourite things? What do you like doing with your child?” Even starting with some of those really icebreaking conversations, getting out of genogram, understanding who’s important in their lives just starts to open those doors.
Dan Moss (08:05): Hanna described the importance of supervision that allows practitioners to reflect on the pace of their practise, help them to maintain a calm and curious position with families and help some of the questions that may not have been previously asked to really come to the fore.
Hanna Jewell (08:23): Get involved in this work because you want to make a difference, that you do this work because you want to see change for people and you have lots of hopes for people as well. You kind of hold those, and you really want things to be different for people. And sometimes, this causes a bit of a mismatch because you are so eager to kind of create change, and you’ve got some great ideas that might be really helpful. But actually, you can get out of line with the pace of where the family’s at or where the person’s at, and that actually getting out of pace isn’t helpful. If you are achieving too fast and they’re not getting there, you might be thinking, “Oh, they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re not catching up with kind of where the goal is.” We want them to be here rather than a sense of, if you’re pacing it with them, you can see how things are working like.
(09:15): It is a bit one step at a time. Change is difficult and, sometimes, it’s slow. And if you go too fast, you leave people behind, so how you reign in sometimes your own eagerness to align with where things are up to with the person that you are seeing. And I think in clinical supervision, I often find this in the role, is actually getting people to reflect on where their goals are and where their clients’ goals are, and how you might keep pace with that, and how you might work so that you are working together, not you going or jumping too far forward from it.
Dan Moss (10:00): For all practitioners, there are times when we get stuck in our own work with children and families. In supportive supervision, practitioners receive the space to talk through these times of feeling stuck without fear of judgement or consequences. Banu describes how she achieves this balance in her own supervision practise and how she allows practitioners the confidence to reflect on their own work.
Banu Maloney (10:27): Sometimes people get stuck in working with someone because they just don’t have enough experience, or they don’t know what else they could be doing because they just haven’t had enough years of experience or enough knowledge about different frameworks that might help them to ask the questions. Sometimes people get stuck because the issues that they’re working with with a client is so close to their own issues. The struggles that the client is having is so close to the struggles they are having in their own life or might have had in their life. It stops them from being able to be objective, but they may not be aware of it at the time. What they may be aware of is feeling irritable, feeling impatient with the person. As a supervisor, what I do in order to create the safety at the beginning is declare that, when somebody is struggling, then I have two ways of exploring what that struggle is.
(11:28): One might be, “What else can I suggest that you do? What better questions could you ask? What better ideas can you come up with?” But I also think sometimes it’s useful to look at, “Is there something that the client is struggling with that is resonating for you, mirroring for you, or ringing bells for you in some way?” Now if I ask that question, it might mean that you might feel vulnerable in talking about, “I’ve had a similar difficulty with my partner,” or, “I’ve had a similar difficulty with my mother.” “Is that something that I would have permission to explore with you as a worker, not as my client, but as a worker that might help you to get unstuck?” I think about supervision or supervisory relationship as a relationship, which is an ongoing thing.
(12:21): So if I raise it with my supervisee and say, “Look, I’m concerned there’s something that’s getting you stuck, and it may be something that you need to look at in your own life.” And I get a kind of response that says, “Stay away. It’s not about me. I just need some skills and you have to help me.” Then I would pursue that a bit further, “So that didn’t feel like it worked so well. That conversation seems like it didn’t go so well. Something about the way I was framing it or saying it seems like it didn’t sit comfortably with you. Can we talk about it?” And I wouldn’t give up. I would go back and say, “I think I’m missing something. What can I do? Because it feels like it’s really important. The relationship we have is as important as the relationship you’re going to have with other people. If we are struggling, then I think it’s important we find a way to resolve this. What can I do to help?”
Dan Moss (13:19): I asked Banu how she knows when practitioners are feeling comfortable and confident in supervision. When they’re comfortable to describe areas that they need help in or when they might be getting stuck, how does she know this and how does she create an environment where this knowledge can come to the fore?
Banu Maloney (13:37): It becomes important for me to not minimise what they’re saying, but be curious, “How did you come to this understanding? What’s making you think you’ve messed up? So now that you’re sitting back and looking at it, what are things you need to do?” Whether I’m in private supervision or if I’m in an organisation, in my mind, the priority goes duty of care is to the client first, next to the supervisee. So I need to be the best I can be, so they can make sure that they’re looking after their clients. So when you say, “How much time or when?” it’s often determined by the supervisee. When they get comfortable with me, they will often very quickly go to the place of, “I don’t know why I made this decision or why. I don’t know how I did this. I need you to help me to understand this better.”
(14:42): When they’re still in the beginning phases of wondering whether they can trust me, is it safe to share their mistakes, they will be much more focused on, “This is what I did. These are the achievements, and this is how things are going,” and minimise often the things that they’re worried about. If that’s happening all the time, then it’s up to me to kind of attend to, “What is it that I need to do to make it safe for them to talk?” I reflect on my own journey of being a supervisee. And I think, in my early stages, I used to weigh up and think, “I can’t go to my supervisee and talk about the one session that went really well because that will seem like I’ve got nothing to learn. I can’t talk about the one that went really bad because then she’ll think, ‘She’s got a long way to go.’ I’ll go somewhere in between.”
(15:33): And I keep that in mind because it’s a way for people to feel into the relationship and to make that decision, “Is she somebody who is safe enough for me to say, ‘I need your help,’ and she’s not going to shame me, she’s not going to blame me, and this is going to be a learning experience rather than a shaming experience?”
Dan Moss (15:57): I asked Hanna how she creates space in supervision for practitioners to describe when they might become unsure about how to progress or which direction to head. I asked her about some of the strategies which help practitioners to feel comfortable to share this with her and how she maintained a safe and respectful work environment so that these conversations could be had.
Hanna Jewell (16:21): In some ways, a clinical supervisor, centering yourself around that and being curious around those stuck moments too, just really kind of thinking about and exploring, “I’m just really interested to know what happened at that time. What was happening for you?” And exploring the sense of how you’re sitting with the frustration, because maybe there is some frustration and maybe that’s a legitimate feeling. And then a sense like, “How did that affect the work?” Or, “How did you do in that moment with that feeling coming over you? What was going on for you? How was your plan to work with that and deal with that, and still kind of maintain your ongoing relationship with the client? What do you think Mom might have noticed during that time with you? What do you think? If she was here, what do you think she might say about that session? Do you think there’s anything she would’ve noticed at that moment?”
(17:25): And also the sense of, “For the client, what do you think they were feeling too? Do you think they’re feeling stuck? Just interested because, you kind of feeling a bit stuck in the work, I’m wondering what the parent might be feeling at this point in time with their issues too, in terms of their change process or where they’re up to in their lives. And how do you work in those moments, where people have kind of relapses or where people just go back on old habits? In the past, has there been any other families, clients that this has happened to? And what are some of the things that have been helpful that you might have done in that situation in terms of the things that might have worked at that point?”
(18:12): And then the other thing might be in this, that was, “Where do you want things to go to now? So what might be your next step in terms of the ongoing work? Next session, what’s going to happen? What are some of your plans that you’re going to go forward with? So having a bit of a sense of wonder what happened in that situation for you,” having a bit of a reflection on that, how did it go, and have a bit of a sense of what she might do next session, bringing in her vast experience from other clients and kind of similar situations.
Dan Moss (18:44): So Julia described the important role of understanding a practitioner’s own values, their own connection to these set of values and ways of working. Julia describes how, in understanding these, she’s able to help them approach their work with children and families in ways that help them to overcome challenges or experiences where they feel stuck.
Julia Oxley (19:08): The aim of supervision is that you do bring in some of those sticky points that maybe people are feeling not so sure about or not so clear about which way they want to go, or that they feel like something’s happened that they may need to repair or do differently in the future. That’s the real kind of where the good work happens. And I think that takes some time to build up. Another thing that I often do is, if I do feel like that there’s a real kind of block in that supervision process, whether it be about looking at the clients that happened to parents or in other areas, is take a different tack sometimes and look at areas where things have gone well and build up more of a strengths-based discussion to be able to balance that view that they’re not always seen as being the clinician that doesn’t have all the answers.
(20:02): I know I reflect on my own values, and my own kind of professional practise is informed in part by that as well as what my role is. And I would encourage the practitioner to also reflect on that. And I suppose by doing that, I’m trying to look for opportunities where someone’s own values and understanding of their role matches with when we might need to address parenting.
(20:28): If someone says that they really value someone’s autonomy or really wanting to strengthen their relationships in their work with their clients, then there’s a really lovely opportunity then to bring in a bit of a client’s voice in the supervision to be able to say, “I’m wondering what your client, who’s a parent, might be thinking, might be worried about. And if they don’t know, that’s fine. I wonder if that’s something we can ask. And if they are worried, what might we want to do with that? If they’re worried about what is happening for their child, worried about how they might want to do things differently with their child, that’s a good start of a conversation.” And encouraging the practitioners just to start to explore that is a really important start.
Dan Moss (21:15): I asked Angie, has she worked with practitioners to uncover new ways of working so that these practitioners can continue to support new and unique outcomes and better situations for both children and families?
Angie Nyland (21:29): Yeah, because practitioners really, they want to be helpful. Most people are in the helping professions because they want to create better life situations. They’ll help create better life situations for people, whatever that means. So considering the intent is really important. And I guess, there’s some areas in supervision that are useful to explore. So there’s the relational aspects of… and also what’s happening for supervisees. So there may be other things that kind of trigger or that people hold with… There are other things that people hold that trigger them that sometimes they might notice in the time that they spend with their families in their work.
(22:12): So in terms of the immediacy, I guess we think about, “How is it that we can help slow down the process a bit for practitioners so that they’re able to notice things as they go along and that they might inform their next steps?” So there could be anything from how you think you might run a session, what might happen within a session to give you space to do that just even inside your head, or there might be an actual break if it’s a longer period of time, if you’ve got a family. So it might go back to finding what’s most important to focus on in the time together to making sure you’ve got the priorities right, to checking in about whether something’s changed, to asking thought-provoking questions, to moving to sharing some ideas, but just having a bit of a system in your head, checking in again, finding out how any particular thought or how something’s landed with other people and how do you end well.
(23:05): So how do you have a bit of a system for people maybe to work within a session that might help them to slow down? How do you make sure they’re spending time on where they’re at? So kind of have an eye on that in the supervision as well, on where we are at so, “How is it for you to be talking with me about this at the moment? How was it for you when you were in the session with the family?” I think going into family work, thinking about each person and how you might attend to each person and slowing down enough and spending the time doing that to begin with, the focusing, the prioritising to begin with, is really helpful to the rest of the session because it makes sure people feel heard and you’re attending to hopefully what you need to. So there’s a kind of reality check that you can have along the way. And if there are kids involved or children involved, what are the developmental considerations? How might you need to adjust so that you can be including them and not forgetting them?
Dan Moss (24:06): I asked Nick about how a curious approach to the needs of every family member can help practitioners to overcome definite or rigid beliefs or even entrenched truth about a family, creating room for multiple perspective, and ensuring a non-judgmental and safe space both for practitioners and supervision, but also for children and family in their work with practitioners.
Nicholas Barrington (24:32): What I hope to see is a collaborative approach to supervision between supervisor and supervisee, but being kind of curious together about family members’ experiences and possible perspectives, and so using situations within the work to imagine, be in the shoes of different family members. For me, as a supervisor, remaining curious about that and inviting the supervisee to be curious about that as well. Not seeking a right or wrong to this, but it’s kind of the process of attempting to step into the shoes of the other, of multiple different family members. And in turn, moving through different family members’ perspectives around one kind of situation or experience or incident or a context in attempt to kind of cultivate a felt experience of multiple perspectives, that things can be experienced differently by different family members at any given point in time. There isn’t a single truth to any of this.
(25:35): And there’s a lot of richness, and it’s in that diversity. And it’s important to be able to see that people are coming from different positions, in the hope and expectation that doing that, stepping in the shoes of in supervision better equips practitioners to be in the room with multiple people, to remain curious about what’s happening for them at any given moment within a conversation, within a session, within a space, and hopefully have a model experience by which to draw on where they can foster that and invite that same curiosity with the families that they work, believing, I guess this is my kind of belief or philosophy, that where families can be more curious about each other’s perspectives, they are better equipped to navigate the kind of inherent challenges and speed humps and obstacles that families and life kind of brings.
Dan Moss (26:34): I asked Hanna about the place for supervision in considering the child’s social and emotional wellbeing through all practise engagement and how this ultimately leads to better outcomes for children and their families.
Hanna Jewell (26:48): I think these are the really great moments in clinical supervision sometimes, where you want to explore the strengths of what’s gone well. Because often, sometimes, there’ll be the stuck moments that you kind of work on. But actually, sometimes, it’s also about the strengths or the things that went really well. So you were hesitant maybe in having that conversation, but how did you manage to do it and how did it go? What went well? What are some of the things? And what do you think that Mom might have made of this kind of conversation? So really exploring the things that she sees as kind of things that she’s done well. And actually, in some ways, what you’re wanting to do is amplify that by having a time and space in the clinical supervision to really reflect on those coming through stuck moment in clinical work to this sense like, “Oh, I did something that kind of worked. It changed something in a little way.”
(27:50): Be a bit curious, stick with this moment, and just really have… I guess there’s some joy in that kind of conversation. One of the things I really like to explore is that sense of achievement in the work, but also joy in the work, that sometimes there’s some really difficult parts, but sometimes you have some wins. And so that’s really important to work with. And I think that question of, “Well, what is it from this work that you would want to take forward? In your work going forward, what are some of the things that you might change or do differently as a result of what you’ve done in working with this family? Are there things that you might want to do? Some more training in? Are there some things that actually you’ve discovered about yourself in this that will give you confidence in working with families going forward as well? So, yeah, let’s take this moment and really sit with and do that.”
(28:45): And I think it’s also really important to just witness that for supervisees. Just like, “Wow, that’s amazing. You got through a stuck moment for all of us.” That can be a really complex part of the work that we put ourselves out there and your ability to change your tack or work in a different way or being open up to other possibilities with this work, that’s a real achievement in yourself as a kind of worker. But also then the sense of, “How does this fit for your practice, and what have you discovered about yourself?” Because I think it’s all about making it yourself. I might have done something different in the moment or acted in a different way because my practice is this way. And you’ve discovered a way of doing this for yourself and that fits for your practice. So yeah, really a sense of wanting to amplify that, I reckon, with the person that’s with you.
Dan Moss (29:39): So that concludes episode two of our two-part series on supervision for children’s wellbeing. I have to say, it’s been an absolute delight to be able to work with Hanna, Banu, Julia, Nick, and Angie from the Bouverie Centre, who have provided the benefit of their extreme wisdom, experience in supervision that supports the wellbeing of children and their families but also, just as importantly, the practitioner themselves.
(30:07): A reminder to please access our online course, which was produced collaboratively with the Bouverie Centre and is called Supervision for children’s wellbeing. You can access that through our website on www.emergingminds.com.au. I’m Dan Moss. Thank you all so much for your time, and we look forward to joining you again in a fortnight’s time for another Emerging Minds podcast.
Narrator (30:34): Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practice, brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, led by Emerging Minds. The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.