Running head: SUPERVISION PAPER

Supervision Paper
Jessica Pimentel
Florida Gulf Coast University

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Supervision Paper

On March 2nd of 2016 I attended the Neighborhood Accountability meeting at the Lee
County Department of Human Service, the Youth Services staff meeting. All members of the
Youth Services agency all gathered in a meeting room. The meeting included the Neighborhood
Building Program Manager, Neighborhood Relations Coordinator, Two Neighborhood
Accountability Board Coordinators, and the Administrative Specialist. This is the group of
individuals that coordinate the diversion program for the youth.
The meeting was supervised by the Neighborhood Relations Coordinator due to her
active involvement with answering to the Program Manager, the two Neighborhood
Accountability Board Coordinators, and the Administrative Specialist on a daily basis. The
information she covered were: clarifying information and pamphlets that the coordinators need to
be giving out to the youth at the NAB Conference when their case is assigned so they can begin
working on their assignments that day, informing the Coordinators to input the exact address of
the community the youth lives in and where the youth committed the offense for future reference
used in GIS (General Information System), if a case goes longer than six months for the
coordinator to go make contact with youth and make it urgent for them to finish their case by
offering assistance with the assignments that are past due or they will be sent back to State
Attorneys Office to go back to court, and I discovered that their caseloads can get up to 40 cases
at a time per coordinator.
The meeting was very informative and relaxed. We all sat around the table listening to the
Neighborhood Relations Specialist, but each person was able to discuss their feelings on the
topics that were brought up. Also, there were ideas that came from the members of the
department in response to the Neighborhood Relations Coordinator (their supervisor) discussing

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the numbers of youth reoffending and how they could help with that they get in their case plans.
One of the coordinators suggested a pre-test and post-test for the Know the Law assignment
that the kids do. That is an idea that is not going to be implemented because after discussion it
just was not going to be effective; however, the Neighborhood Relations Coordinator listened
and responded with respect towards the Coordinators idea. The meeting closed within an hour. It
was a meeting that was informative, relaxed, and the co-workers work cohesively due to this
method of supervision meetings that they have, just to add, they also have one-on-one supervisor
meetings on a regular basis, as well.
As I was reading articles in regards to Supervising, I found a couple of articles that
supported the way the meeting I was in was ideally handled in a working relationship, so that it
creates a positive environment for the social workers to work in and creates better outcomes for
the way they handle their cases, along with interact with their co-workers and supervisors. This
creates a better outcome for the client if the social worker is getting the support they need and are
feeling positive about their work environment. In the article Social work supervision research
(1970-2010): The way we were and the way ahead, it stated that they found eighteen articles
that supported the supervision meetings with social workers regularly for work stress, support
and satisfaction, leadership, style and in regard to client outcomes, (O'Donoghue, K., & Tsui,
M., 2015, p. 625). Out of these articles that they used in this particle research, it resulted in
positive outcomes for the social workers and clients. In the other article I read called Content
and purpose of supervision in social work practice in England: Views of newly qualified social
workers, managers and directors I had found the responses interesting and informative through
the surveys that they had used to gain insight from the social workers and supervisors. The
supervisors response was that they prefer social workers that had experience in the field of work

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they are hired for because they do not need the supervision meetings, whereas, the response from
a social worker that had been in the field for a while had felt that they needed the opportunity to
debrief with cases, especially the one they had with 5 children. They felt they had no support,
(Manthorpe, J., Moriarty, J., Hussein, S., Stevens, M., & Sharpe, E., 2015, p. 60). From what I
have learned recently, is that debriefing a case is part of self-care.
What I have learned from the supervisor meeting I attended is that I am in favor of group
supervisor meetings and it is necessary to have regularly meetings with your supervisor. The
reason I am in favor of the group supervisor meetings is because I witnessed that it is effective to
be on the same page with what is going on with each others cases, gain new ideas from each
other or learn from each other on cases that you have not experienced, and be emotional support
for each other due to the fact that the other people know what kind of cases you are working on.
Supervisors are leaders, so they should be guiding and supporting you to be a competent social
worker in their agency. This assignment has materialized the importance of the supervision
meetings in my future employment.

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References

Manthorpe, J., Moriarty, J., Hussein, S., Stevens, M., & Sharpe, E. (2015). Content and purpose
of supervision in social work practice in England: Views of newly qualified social
workers, managers and directors. The British Journal of Social Work, 45(1), 52-68.
O'Donoghue, K., & Tsui, M. (2015). Social work supervision research (1970-2010): The way we
were and the way ahead. The British Journal of Social Work, 45(2), 616-633.