Supervisors Role in Looking after Children Who Are School Refusers - Case Study Example

Social Work Introduction Social work involves a lot of activities which relate to the well being of the society and one such issue is the role of supervisors in undertaking supervision over children. This essay is going to look into the role of supervisors in looking after children who are school snubs. School snubs or refusers are children who refuse school due to several reasons such as illnesses such as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). These children are normally placed in special schools where they can adjust to a proper environment which is conducive for them to undertaking learning through play and reading. This essay is going to look into a scenario whereby a supervisor has noticed that the supervisee is not happy with the management. As a result, we have to look into the role of supervisors and how they undertake their work and the effects or relation of undertaking his/her assigned duties. Role of Child Play Supervision Children who experience challenges in adjusting to school and other tasks such as school refusers need urgent and proper supervision to ensure play therapy is well undertaken. In this case, the theme we explore is work conditions in affecting relationship of supervisors and children undertaking play therapy. In the process of undertaking child therapy, a supervisor has to be well educated, informed and in touch with the children under his/her care. A supervisor plays a critical role in ensuring that children are catered for effectively by their supervisee. In most cases, the supervisor plays a role of assisting the supervisee to become more effective and active to the needs of the children. Therefore, he/she offers support and advice on issues that may arise from the therapist’s clinical work (Shohet 2011, p. 86-88). Some of these issues include; therapeutic techniques, relationships or complicated issues and other legal or ethical issues that might affect the undertaking of the supervisee’s duties. Supervisors of children are important and therefore the need for play therapists is an important function that needs a lot of effort and concern. Thus there is need for trainees and qualified practitioners to work closely to ensure that play therapy assist children in achieving normalcy in their education life. Supervisors make use of varied skills in boosting their work and ensuring that play therapy becomes quite effective in dealing with challenges of offering education to young learners. Supervisors should be people well versed in the field of undertaking supervision of practitioners teaching young learners. People who need proper supervision include informal educators, trainees and practitioners with minimal experience in handling young learners. Supervisors are experienced individuals who have worked with young learners within different environments (Hawkins 2007, p. 84). Therefore, through practical experience in handling different situations in therapeutic teaching, they could offer great assistance to supervisees as outlined. The two major roles that supervisors undertake are: a) Education: Due to the vast experience possessed by supervisors, they act as agents of education to other people and especially supervisees. Whereby they provide skills and provide guidance that ensures theory is tuned into practice. Moreover, they provide for space whereby ideas and opportunities can be created. In some cases, supervisors enable supervisees to approach different topics and subjects on children in a different manner. b) Support: This is one of the important pillars of understanding the work children undertake. Support ensures that a person is confirmed as a person and at the same time as a therapist. Support ensures that supervisors have the capability of utilizing the personal and professional capabilities of the supervisee. In some cases, it is necessary for the supervisor to offer crucial feedback which is constructive and positive. While, in some cases it is also important for enough space to be given to the supervisee to reflect and elucidate on important issues relating to work. Moreover, what would be their reaction to these issues of work in cases where reflections are evoked by vocation? Work has to be done in a manner that ensures supervisors are accountable for the monitoring and evaluation of the quality of work undertaken by children. The above tasks and undertaking should be well developed in a relationship ensuring all the terms are well clarified and accounted for through a proper contract. For instance, all the responsibilities, legal implications, severance and issues relating to work should be addressed in the contract. However, for proper supervision to occur, both the supervisor and supervisee have to cultivate a personal and professional relationship that ensures bonding in building a good working relationship. In all cases and in the case relating to child refusers, these roles of a supervisor are used in solving all conflicts and issues in the process of building a good working relationship and environment. Case Scenario In the case we are dealing with, we have a scenario whereby the supervisee is not happy with the management of the organization she currently works at. Moreover, both she and the supervisor are informal educators who are working with the organization in relation to teaching school refusers. In this case, the supervisee is affected by her poor relation with management while the supervisor is worried that this situation might affect the supervisee’s effectiveness. This situation requires expert handling of the situation and therefore the supervisor acts as guide for the supervisee and the link between her, the management and the children. Based on arguments by Alfred Kadushin on his theories and arguments, he refers to his model of supervision where the supervisor assumes three major functions. These functions include administrative, educational and supportive which are undertaken by the supervisor in different scenarios. Kadushin’s model recognizes the necessary work and other functions that need to be achieved in the process of undertaking his/her work. For instance, according to this model the administrative functions look into the promotion and maintenance of good standards of work. While at the same time it involves the co-ordination of administration policies which ensures the smooth running of the organization (Hawkins 2007, p. 117). Based on this administrative function, the scenario presented in our case will require that the supervisor organizes herself to ensure that all practices and policies of the organization are enhanced. For instance, the supervisor should find out the problems facing the supervisee with a view of resolving these problems. In this case, the supervisor should find the problems that the supervisee has with the organization’s management with a view of resolving these problems. The other function of the supervisor is educational in that the supervisor supports the supervisee in ensuring her capabilities are up to scratch. As a result, the supervisor should ensure that each worker develops in a proper manner to ensure that full potential of all people is fully realized. This makes the employee which in this case is the supervisee to be more useful and try to make use of experience and skills. However, in our scenario we look at two personalities who are informal educators and as a result, their educational credentials not formally recognized within the play therapy professional circles. As a result, in this scenario the supervisor will not rely upon her educational qualifications but she will rely upon her job experience (VanderGast 2008, p. 104). Drawing from her experiences the supervisor should advise the supervisee to deal with issues affecting her job and work output. As a result the supervisee will have a simple time in dealing with several issues at the organization. As an informal educator, the supervisor has undergone a lot of experiences that she could use in ensuring that the supervisee opens up to her on the problems with administration. Moreover, she could use her experiences in ensuring that she creates rapport with the supervisee where sharing would assist in ensuring that proper communication is developed (Shohet 2011, p. 91). Communication ensures conflicts or problems are well communicated for solutions to be devised for these conflicts and problems. The question of power has been advanced when the educational role of supervisors is asserted. Therefore, in most cases supervisees see supervisors as people with influence over their work since they represent the interest of administration. In this case, the supervisor should clarify that there is no conflict of power or roles since both persons have the same capabilities. Therefore, the educational role of the supervisor will present no conflict on supervision or achievement of the supervisee’s objectives. One of the most important functions of a supervisor is offering support to his or her supervisees or subordinates. Therefore, in our case the supervisor should having realized the problems facing the supervisee, she should offer support for her. Offering support ensures supervisees are given morale and job satisfaction which ensures that these people work becomes satisfying. In most cases, supervisors undertake their jobs by ensuring that they prevent situations which could contribute to stressful situations and assist them in purging these situations. Therefore, supervisors offer support through counselling and he/she should make sure that he/she is approachable, share failures and responsibilities and understand situations that contribute to failure (Hawkins 2007, p. 58-62). In the process of undertaking work, a supervisor should support is important since it helps in validating and supporting a supervisee as a worker and a person. Therefore, the well being of the supervisee is important in the processing of undertaking of the task as advocated under the Kadushin model. Issues and Recommendations Based on the roles of the supervisors in relation with our scenario, several issues arise and these need recommendations to resolve. One of the main primary issues surrounds the role of supervisors’ looks adversarial and therefore, it puts the supervisee in an inferior position. For instance, within the common model of play therapy, Kadushin is concerned of organizational or managerial supervision. Therefore, he argues that this model of supervision tends to favour administration since the interests of the organization rank higher compared to those of the organization. In this case, the supervisee is disadvantaged and therefore needs to have better working environment. In another sense, others argue that having the concern for developmental growth of the worker amounts to offering support. Therefore, the worker is empowered and supported to work through skills empowerment (Kadushin 1992, p. 20-22). This is unlike offering emotional support to the supervisee as a person to overcome the challenges facing the individual so that he can offer better services. Another issue concerns the model being more tied into managerial mode to much that other factors and approaches are ignored or left out. For instance, should we look into these issues as splitting the child therapy functions into; formative (Educational), normative (administration) and restorative (support). Therefore, if we emphasize on one of these factors been a more balanced approach would be arrived at in ensuring proper child therapy work is undertaken. Thus the argument is stretched further by having managerial and non-managerial supervision. Whereby, some argue that managers should not be concerned with educational supervision but they should be concerned with support and skills. In the Kadushin model, all three roles are well connected with managerial supervision while non-managerial supervision is largely concerned with support and work capability (VanderGast 2008, p. 85). In this case, the supervisor and the supervisee are both informal educators and therefore, the non-managerial approach has been used within this organization. This model has been adopted within many organizations but experts and psychologist argue that this might not be the best approach. For instance, the study undertaken by Vandergast on clinical supervision contended that most of the child therapists had not undergone supervision in their professional careers. While, the same study pointed out that supervisee are comfortable working with people qualified as child therapists and this is salient in the attainment of satisfaction by supervisees. Thus these issues have to be analyzed in relation to the current scenario and proper solutions provided to the supervisor in this case. Based on the issues raised on child therapy supervision and the roles of a supervisor, we have recommendations that the non-managerial approach should be deployed in this case. This is because it looks into the concerns of the supervisee and thus in this case, it will assist greatly in solving the problems the supervisee has with administration. Moreover, it does not heap responsibility and administrative oversight on the supervisee and therefore, the supervisor can easily create channels of communication. This would be appropriate in this case since would greatly assist in reducing tension between the supervisee and the administration. Moreover, with the supervisor’s role being similar to that of a manager it would be ensure that the supervisor enhances the work of her supervisee. In our case, she should understand the challenges the supervisee is undergoing and take initiative to look for solutions as a supervisor (Hawkins 2007, p. 76). Moreover, the supervisor should understand that based on the Kadushin model, if the supervisor fails then also the supervisee has also failed since the work of managers is to enhance and promote work of its subordinates. Consequently, in this case both the supervisor and supervisee have the same skills set and therefore making use of the non-managerial approach would unlock the stalemate between the supervisee and the administration. However, in this case the best approach would be to make sure the client becomes the centre of the argument and solution. For instance, should the supervisee be the attention of the supervisions or the services and work offered to clients and in this case the children. Since supervisions are only meant to enhance service provision and not to put spotlight on supervisee in different situations. We have to look into the settings and how work is done in other areas. How does the relationship of the supervisor and the supervisee affect the client and are the needs of the client in line with those of the administration. Thus, the interest of the supervisor is to promote the interests and well being of the client as a central component in the supervisee’s supervision (Kadushin 1992, p. 45). Thus, the supervisor must play a mediator role in ensuring that the needs of the client, organization and supervisee are not compromised severely by many factors. Making use of this approach would ensure support for the supervisee so that proper attention can be given to the clients. A proper structure would define the relationship between all actors in the process of enhancing and promoting proper child therapy actions for everybody in the society. Conclusion Child therapy and clinical supervision are important duties within the field of social work due to the importance of proper upbringing of children. Supervision is a task that is clearly designed to enhance child therapy especially in difficult situations such as where there are child refusers as is the case in this essay. Therefore, better approaches of supervision are required to overcome and make effective impact in the supervision work. In this case, the supervisor has to understand his/her roles carefully and ensure strategies are deployed to ensure all staff work in harmony in ensuring clients needs are met. These strategies include having non-managerial style of leadership and putting focus on the client rather than the organization or administration in ensuring all goals and objectives are met with ease. This is specifically manifested in this case of two practitioners on child therapy with the same capabilities. References Hawkins, P & Shohet, R 2007, Supervision in the Helping Professions. An individual, group and organizational approach, Milton Keynes, Open University Press/Maidenhead. Kadushin, A 1992, Supervision in Social Work (3rd. edn.), New York, Columbia University Press. Revised fourth edition published 2002. Shohet, R 2011, Supervision as transformation: A passion for learning, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd. VanderGast, T 2008, An exploration of experiences, preferences and predictors of satisfaction in clinical supervision with play therapists, Charlotte, The University of North Carolina Press. Read More