THSP629 - Professional Supervision Field Unit A

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

THSP638 Supervision: Peer and Group

Teaching organisation

Students should anticipate undertaking 150 hours of focused learning in this unit. This may include online activities, reading, webinars, preparation of assessment tasks and so on. Webinars may be offered either weekly over a twelve week semester, or in intensive blocks.

Unit rationale, description and aim

Graduates of programs in Supervision need to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in this discipline and demonstrate a capacity to evaluate the various ways in which their personal development impacts upon and contributes to their professional roles. In this unit, students will explore, demonstrate and integrate the professional skills necessary for practitioners in professional supervision. They will learn to maintain confidentiality as well as how to handle mandatory disclosure issues or other critical situations. They will also practice the navigation of cultural, religious or political differences along with language difficulties. Participants will learn to engage constructively with the additional challenges to the supervisory process that emerge when using information and other technologies. The unit aims to assist supervisors from a range of multidisciplinary fields to develop intentionally their skills and expertise in professional supervision.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Implement a supervisory process with a supervisee that accords with ethical and legal standards (GA3, GA5)

LO2 - Participate fruitfully in their own supervision and engage critically in reflective practice (GA5)

LO3 - Recognise the role of critically reflexive reflection for effective ethical professional practice (GA3, GA5)

Graduate attributes

GA3 - Apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA5 - Demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession.

Content

Topics will include:

• The learning partnership: role clarity, collaboration, impacts of core beliefs, and resilience;
• The parameters of supervision: roles, context and accountabilities;
• Ethical, legal and professional matters within a range of contexts;
• Supervisory leadership and organisational dimensions: noticing patterns and addressing contextual issues;
• Supervisory models, methods and approaches: evaluation and critique;
• Working with complexity: challenging situations, dynamics, feedback and boundaries;
• Evaluation, planning and discernment of supervisory stances and interventions;
• Supervisory application: presentations of practice; reflective review integrating theoretical perspectives; drawing together current supervisory practice, learning opportunities, theoretical and professional resources;
• Mapping a supervisory process.

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit involves 150 hours of focused learning, which reflects the standard volume of learning for a unit in a university qualification of this Australian Qualifications Framework type.

The unit is normally offered in scheduled online mode, a way that blends the use of online delivery of learning materials and activities that can be undertaken synchronously and asynchronously. This means that students can undertake some learning activities on their own at times that do not depend on the availability of others, and other learning activities that are undertaken interactively with other students and teaching staff at the same time. Using scheduled online delivery means that students do not have to be at the same place as each other, but can interact remotely.

In order to benefit from this mode of learning, students need to be independently motivated. Units offered in the course normally follow a cycle: students complete preparatory activities before meeting together; in webinars, students work collaboratively with each other and the lecturer to clarify, extend and apply what they have learned; and after each collaborative session, students reflect critically on their personal experience and observations in light of materials covered in the unit. As the cycle is repeated, students bring new understandings to bear on further issues and ideas, so that each cycle of learning deepens the one before. Students co-construct a supportive and encouraging learning community through their active participation in classes as well as through offline engagement, such as through discussion boards.

As this unit involves rehearsing helping skills that will be utilised professionally in one-on-one engagement with future clients, attendance at all webinars is mandated to ensure practice is supervised.

Assessment strategy and rationale

The assessment strategy for this unit has been designed to enable students to demonstrate the values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to supervisory practice, as well as their capacities to draw lessons insightfully from real situations in which they have engaged.

All assessment tasks are designed for students to show their achievement of each learning outcome and graduate attribute. They require students to demonstrate the nexus between their learning, dispositions, and spiritual practice, and the evidence on which this demonstration is based.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Bernard, Janine, and Rodney K. Goodyear. Fundamentals of Clinical Supervision, 5th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2014.

Bumpus, Mary Rose and Rebecca Langer. Supervision of Spiritual Directors: Engaging in Holy Mystery. Harrisberg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2005.

Campbell, Jane M. Essentials of Clinical Supervision. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.

Carroll, Michael and Maria C. Gilbert. On Being a Supervisee: Creating Learning Partnerships. London, UK: Vukani Publishing, 2005.

Frawley-O’Dea, Mary Gail and Mary E. Sarnat. The Supervisory Relationship: A Contemporary Psychodynamic Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 2001.

Hawkins, Peter and Robin Shohet. Supervision in the Helping Professions, 4th ed. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2012.

Page, Steve, and Val Wosket. Supervising the Counsellor and Psychotherapist: A Cyclical Model, 3rd ed. Hove: Routledge, 2015.

Paterson, Michael, and Jessica Rose. Enriching Ministry: Pastoral Supervision in Practice. London, UK: SCM, 2014.

Scaife, Joyce. Supervision in Clinical Practice: A Practitioner’s Guide, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group, 2009.

Shohet, Robin. Passionate Supervision. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008.