Supervision and the dynamics of collusion : a rule of optimism?

Revell, Lisa; Burton, Victoria

Abstract

In the UK, Serious Case Reviews and Inquiries undertaken over the last five decades continue to evidence that children are both silenced and rendered invisible as a result of parental behaviour and professional inaction. There have been recent calls for practitioners to enact greater professional curiosity in child protection practice, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that practitioners have less opportunity to be curious in overly bureaucratic and unsupportive environments. Good-quality supervision may provide one mechanism to encourage professional curiosity, but supervision and the supervisory processes therein have received scant attention or scrutiny within such inquiries. Whilst supervision can act as a conduit to encourage good practice, ensuring compliance with standards and promoting the positive well-being of individual practitioners (the core conditions under which professional curiosity may flourish), we hypothesise that complex relational dynamics have the potential to disrupt such endeavours. In the discussion that follows, we shall first seek to explore the tenets of good supervision, before scrutinising the potential pitfalls, with a focus on how one specific factor, the rule of optimism, may be transposed onto the supervisory relationship and, as in front line practice, how it may stifle professional curiosity in the supervisory relationship.

Citation

Revell, L., & Burton, V. (2016). Supervision and the dynamics of collusion : a rule of optimism?. The British journal of social work, 46(6), 1587-1601. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv095

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 1, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Nov 11, 2015
• Publication Date: 2016-09
• Deposit Date: Nov 24, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 23, 2017
• Journal: British journal of social work
• Print ISSN: 0045-3102
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 46
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1587-1601
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv095
• Keywords: Child protection; Safeguarding; Supervision; Professional curiosity; Rule of optimism
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/381745
• Publisher URL: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/11/11/bjsw.bcv095
• Additional Information: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in British journal of social work following peer review. The version of record Lisa Revell, Victoria Burton; Supervision and the Dynamics of Collusion: A Rule of Optimism?, The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 46, Issue 6, 1 September 2016, Pages 1587–1601 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv095
• Contract Date: Nov 23, 2017