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© British Association of Social Workers
The Supervision of Child Protection Work
Alan Rushton is Director of the Master's Degree programme in Mental Health Social Work at The Institute of Psychiatry (University of London) and the Maudsley Hospital. He received an Honours Degree from Manchester University in 1967 and the Diploma in Social Work from Sussex University in 1970. He has worked as a mental health social worker and lecturer in England and Canada. His main research interest is in the developmental consequences of early childhood adversity (New Parents for Older Children, BAAF, 1988)
Jack Nathan was formerly Team Manager in the Hospital Social Work Department of the Maudsley Hospital and is now a trainer, consultant and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. He gained both his Social Science Degree and his Master's Degree in Social Work at London University (Bedford College). He is interested in the development of advanced practice in social work by bringing together research and clinical-theoretical perspectives
Correspondence to Alan Rushton, Course Director, M.Sc. in Mental Health Social Work, Social Work Department, The Maudsley Hospital, 101 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AZ, UK
Summary
It has frequently been recommended that statutory child protection services in Great Britain need greater provision of specialist supervision to support front line social workers. This qualitative study, based in social services departments in London, used the focus group method to explore the provision of supervision by team managers in a very pressurized work environment. The study highlights the difficulty of protecting adequate supervision time but shows how supervisors can use their skills to conduct case related discussion concerned with developing professional skills. ‘Inquisitorial’ and ‘empathic-containing’ functions are identified and an approach is proposed for combining them in training courses for child protection supervisors. The paper recommends that supervision training needs to be expanded, to be more precisely targeted, and that outcomes need to be rigorously and appropriately assessed.
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