Clinical Supervision and Professional Support in Bolton PCT

What does a supervisor do?

The Trust is fortunate to have staff with abundant skills and remarkable loyalty, willingness and creativity. Supervisors will be on the lookout for these and other good qualities, and will be interested in helping those qualities to become ever more influential in the supervisee’s work. The only purpose of the supervisor is to help the supervisee do their job better and ‘smarter’. This will mean being interested, respectful and curious; recognising and amplifying strengths and resources; facilitating the supervisee’s thinking and decision-making; and maintaining clear and professional boundaries – especially confidentiality.

It often comes with a sense of relief to learn that the supervisor doesn’t need to have any answers or ‘fix’ the supervisee’s problems – in fact this is actively discouraged. The supervisor’s job is to help the supervisee make their own decisions. It’s a purely facilitative role, using solution focused language skills to clarify the supervisee’s goals, discover the supervisee’s strengths, ask helpful questions, and pay attention to how the supervisee wants to develop their job or their casework, and how they are going to move forward. Of course, supervisors also have to be mindful of their responsibilities to patients and the Trust, as well as their serious responsibility to the supervisee. Supervision should be interesting and enriching (sometimes even fun!) for both partners.