Addressing Anxiety: Practitioners’ Examination of Mindfulness in Constructivist Supervision

It is widely documented that practicum students experience anxiety as a natural part of their counselor development. Within constructivist supervision, mindfulness exercises are used to help counselors-in-training (CITs) work with their anxiety by having them focus on their internal experiences. To inform and strengthen our practice, we engaged in a practitioner inquiry study to understand how practicum students experienced mindfulness as a central part of supervision. We analyzed 25 sandtray reflections and compared them to transcripts from two focus groups to uncover three major themes related to the student experience: (a) openness to the process, (b) reflection and self-care, and (c) attention to the doing. One key lesson learned was the importance of balancing mindfulness exercises to highlight the internal experiences related to anxiety while providing adequate opportunities for CITs to share stories and hear from peers during group supervision.

Effectiveness Of Supervision On Work Engagement And Turnover Intention Of Care Managers in Japan

In Japan, care managers engage frail older adults to support their assisted living in long term care insurance system. However, due to the lack of some or all supervision, many care managers face problems such as low work engagement and high turnover rate. This study aims to examine what types of supervision have positive effects on work engagement and turnover intensions of care managers in Japan. The sample of 241 care managers were asked whether they have received individual supervision in the workplace (ISVW), individual supervision in the community (ISVC), group supervision in the workplace (GSVW), or group supervision in the community (GSVC). Independent samples t-tests and one-way ANOVAs were conducted to examine the effectiveness of each types of supervision on work engagement and turnover intension. T-tests showed that only GSVW was significantly related to work engagement (t=-2.06, p<0.05). Whereas, only ISVW had a significant effect on turnover intensions (t=2.37, p<0.05). One-way ANOVAs revealed that 28 care managers receiving GSV had significantly higher work engagement than 92 care managers who did not receive any SV (F=5.33, p<0.01). 40 care managers receiving both ISV and GSV showed significantly lower turnover intentions than 92 care managers who received neither ISV nor GSV (F=2.84, p<0.05). Since the results have implications for the importance of supervisions to enhance work engagement or to reduce turnover intension of care managers, a larger sample will need to confirm these effects.

Peer-Led Group Supervision A model to support and inspire social work students to be ‘active discoverers and constructors of their own knowledge’.

This article reviews the research findings from a student evaluation of a pilot study of peer-led group supervision for undergraduate social work students at a university in the UK. The definition, purpose and concept of peer-led group supervision are considered and the pilot model and intended learning outcomes described. The student evaluation provides positive feedback that this group setting allowed for support, knowledge exchange and an opportunity to discuss learning from placement experiences. Constructive student feedback enables further discussion in regard to the logistical set-up of this group learning environment and the role of an observing Practice Educator/link tutor. Recommendations are made for how this model can be developed in the future to further the learning opportunities for social work students using this peer-led group supervision model.