Wulf Livingston

Senior Lecturer in Social Work – Glyndwr University

Supervising social workers in alcohol and other drug work

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AIMS OF PRESENTATION

• The context• Supervision as an experience• Considerations – what and who’s knowledge • The key elements of supervision – alcohol and

social work• Using process and experience (rather than

content) models of supervision – theory and example

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Alcohol and Social Work a Context

•Correlation with social work client base •The perceived alcohol problem (symptom or problem)•Strategic responses (Labours addiction)•From CAT to Case Management, with some DANOS thrown in•Ability to parent or Negative Hair Follicle Tests?•(AAPPQ/DAPPQ/SADAPPQ any old PPQ)•Inadequacies (role, support, adequacy and legitimacy) = Training

Social Worker Supervision – a context

TimeCaseloads

LifeDemands

Inspection Monitoring

Conflicting or Complimentary?

Consistency and Fairness?

FearHopelessness

InadequacyLegitimacy

Supervisors -Four Heads or one?

Getting Supervision?

TheoriesModels

Philosophies Approaches

Managers-

Ownership

ClientsWhat to do?

Help?

Case Management Supervision – Balancing audit of accountability with improved staff developmental

understanding

• Climbie – Laming (2003)

• Informing case not practitioner

• Risk and case management not social work?

• Reflection -Schon• Knowledge Dialogue (Typologies beyond the codified -

Collingwood, Drury Hudson, Meemeduma, Trevithick ..)

Challenging the two assumptions

1. Not our work – need to manage risk, by referral to others (Not a supervision and skills conversation)

2. If we do work, we need more training to inform the knowledge we use (Is alcohol knowledge deficiency issue?)

DRINKING LANAGUAGE• “Now, I*** drank like a fish…..” (A)• “But my grandfather, wasn’t a teetotaller but wasn’t, he

wouldn’t drink really, he was … you remember the Band of Hope?” (A)

• “…….who has a sherry at eleven o’clock and she’s not an old biddy, she’s…..” (A)

• “……the other one was a much older male and an alcoholic and all of his friends were alcoholics, so there was this kind of community of alcoholism….” (B)

• “Not a dependency where they need to drink alcohol but if I do go out at the weekend I’m going to get leathered and I’m going to have a laugh and that’s how he was and that’s how he explained his alcohol use really and....” (C)

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Drinking Language (2)

• “He was drinking out but he would also bring it home, as well. So, he’d go out on a Saturday and he’d come back plastered, you know…not falling over drunk...not wetting his pants drunk …” (D)

• “….. he is an alcoholic, and he owns his own business and everyone knows he is, and it’s this thing of, “Oh, you know, it’s a shame isn’t it?” ‘cause it’s like every now and again he will go on a binge drink and it’s funny you know that he walks home and falls into the hedge and – but it’s a known thing in the village that this is how he is ….” (E)

Non classroom influences

• “I must admit I look at my colleagues, forty plus, they do like a glass of wine in the evening. They do smell of alcohol in the morning, when they come to work and they’re driving to work.”

• “I saw it at first hand what alcohol can do to people, change them as a person, changes their character” 10

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UNCODIFIED KNOWLEDGE(Direct Experience – Interactional and

Informal)

Life Drinking Experience

Work

FamilySelfSocial

SelfOthersClientsMediaCulture

TrainingSupervision“Big Case”

PRIOR TRAJECTORIES Values

ETHICS

LEARNING STYLE

CODIFIED KNOWLEDGE

PERSONAL KNO

WLEDGE

SUBJECTIVE DISCOURSE

ANDACCOUNT

NARRATIVE AND DISCLOSURE

CURRENT ORGANISATION

Client

“Alcohol”

SocialWorker

Academic Theory

ProfessionalQualification

Research Policy Legislation

What is Supervision? What is it for?

Supervisees

Clients

Quality

Protecting Agency

Caseload Audit

Non ManagerialProfessionalConsultative

Training

Managerial

Normative Administrative

RestorativeSupportive

FormativeEducational

Thinking and Doing not just Doing

Towards Self Supervision (1)

• Stage 1 The Supervisee is an Apprentice- skills development - understanding theory and it's application- building up the confidence and self-belief.• Stage 2 The supervisee is a journeyman craftsman.- how can I help this particular client- starting to make his / her work a reflection of themselves.

Knowledge - Understanding  - Application - Reflection on practice -

Towards Self Supervision (2)

• Stage 3 The supervisee is an independent Craftsman.

- seeing work/therapy in it' s wider context and to deal with the relationship process.

• Stage 4  The supervisee is a master craftsman.

- the experienced practitioner with the ability to self evaluate in the wider context.

  Analysis -  Synthesis – Evaluation – Reflection on Self.

Process Supervision

• Not external content but what is in the room• Not just client feelings, behaviour and

relationships but those of supervision/supervisee.

• Exploring the here and now to learn -more about self-more about clients

• Supervision as reflective mirror on practice• In action and counter transference• Principles

What

• (1) Transferable skills and knowledge• (2) Risk (Problem) or Complicating Factor

(Symptom)• (3) Codified Knowledge (identification,

assessment, working with and referral on)• (4) Experience – (process with client and

in supervision)• (5) Wider Drinking influences (own, family

culture, society, colleagues and agency)

Agency

Client and others

Social Worker

Example (1) –What?

• “Quite a few times actually, just – this is going to sound really bad now, it’s just, like I say, when we drink, I say, “we” collectively, as in me and my friends, someone always tends to fall over or something happens or you know the usual, and then the next morning, I don’t know how many times we’ve been – but you know, to casualty ‘cause someone’s wrist has swollen up or they can’t walk the next day or something like that ..”

Example (2) Process - supervision

• Joining the team – individual and group discussion

• Discussed feelings prior to starting

• Shared feelings and relationships as she began

• (some on going –feelings , relationships and behaviour including drinking)

• Shared feelings as she ended

What did we learn (2)

• Mirror – the step parent, child, new born, • Enriched understanding of beginning

middle and ending of relationships• The power of changing dynamics• Drinking in context• Inclusion and exclusion• Acceptance and Resistance• Changing roles

Any one of us looking back at the human pain and social distress of others to which

we have been exposed,

not to mention our own,

must surely question what makes us suppose we can practice effectively

without such a regular, conscientious examination of our own work, of what might improve it and what impedes

it,

and of our own feelings about it.”Swain 1998