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Aberdeen City Council reviewed its Adult Social Work Supervision Policy, with a primary focus on embedding a trauma-informed lens. This was undertaken by a multi-agency short life working group between December 2022 and July 2023.

The challenge

The previous Adult Social Work Supervision Policy was overdue for review and whilst it was being revised, it was highlighted that there was limited reference to consideration of staff health and wellbeing. This meant the Supervision Policy required significant review to ensure a meaningful focus on staff wellbeing. A focus on staff wellbeing in the current economic and social context is vital as staff are faced with significant demands on an ongoing basis. They may experience trauma and vicarious trauma through their work or in their own lives. The evidence base tells us that to meaningfully and sustainably embed a trauma-informed approach, staff care, support and wellbeing must be prioritised.

Outline of project

To inform the refresh of the Supervision Policy, a number of activities took place with Adult Social Work staff across Aberdeen City.

Initially, a short-life working group was formed, comprising of representatives from all Adult Social Work service areas. Activities undertaken by this group included:

• Seeking an understanding of staff views and perceptions of supervision, and using this information to inform policy and practice
• Reviewing the Professional Supervision Policy and related templates, including reviewing the policy through a ‘trauma-informed’ lens
• The commissioning and delivery of staff training and awareness
• Developing an approach to ongoing quality assurance of supervision.

The first group meeting included collective thinking in relation to current ‘academic’ and professional definitions and how members felt these aligned to their understanding about supervision. The discussion from this helped to shape a consensus about what were the important components in the delivery of supervision. In addition, members of the group reflected on their own knowledge and experience of supervision, and what works well, from the perspective of a line manager and worker. Later meetings were used to build on this, and this informed the principles of the policy.

To further inform this work, an anonymous survey was created by Robert Gordon University for all social work staff to complete. This aimed to collect information about staff experience of current supervision and what they would want supervision to look like in the future. The findings from this survey were reviewed by the working group and taken into consideration when developing the policy.

The draft was refined and the following templates were included for use:

• Supervision Agreement Template
• Supervision Template
• Practitioner Resilience Template
• Caseload Weighting Tool
• Supervision Transfer Template
• Guidance for sharing good practice

The language used in the templates was considered through a trauma-informed lens and tweaked as necessary. Several of the templates were newly added in, to provide additional opportunities for consideration of staff wellbeing, such as the Practitioner Resilience Template and the Caseload Weighting Tool.

In terms of the Supervision Template itself, this was significantly amended so that consideration of staff wellbeing issues was prioritised from the beginning. Additionally, each section of the template was specifically linked to relevant underpinning trauma-informed principles (aligning to the overarching Supervision Policy). Once fully drafted, the Supervision Template was tested by all members of the working group. Feedback was discussed and incorporated to create the final version of the template.

Alongside publishing the refreshed policy, there was planned awareness raising to ensure all social work staff were notified of this update. This was done as part of an input to social work staff at their weekly forum on Teams. A further session took place to continue to increase awareness of the revised policy after people had a chance to start using the templates.

Results

Based on the refreshed policy, training was provided for Supervisors by Robert Gordon University. This training received positive feedback from attendees:

Additionally, a change in mindset was evident between the beginning and end of the session. Attendees were asked ‘What does supervision mean for you?’, and the following responses were given at the start and the end of the training:

The word cloud at the end of the session clearly highlights an increased focus on communication, partnerships and planning for this valued supervision time.

Learning

Seeking the views from all social work staff through the initial survey was fundamental to informing the review of the Supervision Policy. The survey was completed by 103 staff members.

The collective thinking undertaken by the working group at an early stage, to collate thoughts and views about what ‘good supervision’ looks like, and what should be covered in supervision – from the perspectives of both supervisor and supervisee – was also extremely beneficial. The themes from this directly informed the development of the policy, including:

• Collaboration
• Support
• Trust and honesty
• Focus on wellbeing and opportunities for development
• Need for safe, uninterrupted space and time for supervision
• Views on frequency and other logistics
• A space for discussion and reflection on caseloads/complex cases

Taking a trauma-informed lens to the work led to the trauma-informed principles underpinning the whole policy, so that they are fully embedded, including within the Supervision Template itself.

The cross-service membership of the working group was really helpful for gaining buy-in. It was also a beneficial mechanism for discussing queries about the revised policy with all service areas that would be using it. Testing the main Supervision Template with this group was also seen as essential and beneficial to the process.

The group recognised that services would benefit from identifying a representative that could fully commit to attending the working group meetings, as often context that was key to further discussions would be missed if a member was not present.

Additionally, the expected timeframe for the process took longer than initially anticipated due to capacity of those supporting the work. It was noted that it could have been useful to have a clearer agreement in relation to timescales with partners to ensure the process was completed in the expected timeframe.

A short feedback survey was shared with staff in January/February 2024 seeking initial feedback about the refreshed policy. Encouragingly, 82% of those who responded indicated that they had looked at the policy, and 89% had used the revised Supervision Template. A third of those who responded indicated that they felt it had improved their experience of supervision. Two thirds felt it had no impact, however comments indicated that they felt that their supervision had already been a positive experience.

Specific comments made included:

“[Supervision] feels more holistic.”

“Supervision has been effective before and after [the launch of the refreshed policy].”

“I like the new template as it provides structure for supervision and focuses on wellbeing rather than just cases.”

Learning from the survey includes:

• Reinforcing messaging that the template is not prescriptive, but rather provides prompts in relation to themes and can be used flexibly in terms of the ‘order’;
• To think about use of a ‘SMARTer’ approach within the template; and
• Potentially asking people to ‘rate’ their mental and physical wellbeing against a numeric scale, to make it easier to discuss.

Aberdeen City are planning on continuing to promote supervision as an essential pillar in the management of staff wellbeing, a key element of embedding a trauma-informed approach locally.

Resources

Val Vertigans, Lead Strategic Officer Adult Public Protection Aberdeen City HSCP: vavertigans@aberdeencity.gov.uk

Tracey McMillan: tmcmillan@aberdeencity.gov.uk