How do social workers and supervisors make decisions together?

David Wilkins

It is widely assumed that supervision is a key decision-making space for social work. But is it? In this presentation, we will look at the types of decisions that are made in supervision, and the ways in which supervisors and social workers come to an agreement about what they should do next. A tentative model of decision-making in supervision is proposed, in which i) supervisors make a suggestion, ii) a discussion follows in which the social worker is recruited into justifying the suggestion and iii) the supervisor draws the discussion to an end and sets out the next steps. This model, based on an analysis of actual supervision case-discussions, is unlike some of the more common theoretical models of what supervision should be.