Reflective Supervision Core Components - Processing the emotions and feelings from the work

  • Emotion-Focused Questions - Consistency is needed
    • How are you feeling today?
    • I know that your performance overall is going well, but how are you doing emotionally carrying the workload?
    • I heard you had a difficult visit yesterday would you like to talk about it?
  • Reflective listening
    • Repeat back to the supervisee what you heard to ensure that you are understanding
  • Supervisor Modeling
    • Staff may be reluctant to share feelings because their leaders have not shared
    • It is falsely assumed that there is a way that you pack down the feelings, or are not effected
    • Supervisor modeling with boundaries is important
    • "Wow, thank you for sharing that case, that is difficult, I remember when I carried a caseload and I had a case like that…it was difficult, and it was hard to sit it down before going home."
  • Compassion Satisfaction
    • Talking about the joy, meaning, and importance of what we do
    • Celebrate the wins

Reflective Supervision works when:

  • There is consistency, this cannot be seen as the "flavor of the week"
  • There is buy in from the top
  • It is understood that the initial time spent becomes time saving in the long run

How to Implement?

  • Start at the top - leadership must begin first
    • Training
    • Coaching
    • Reminding
  • Create a Reflective Practice Champion
    • Identified the trauma champions and diversity champions to become reflective supervision champion
    • YOU MUST COMMIT TO THE TIME
  • Incorporate reflective supervision in all meetings
    • Champions lead this out  within monthly meetings
  • Onboarding includes reflective supervisor training
    • This holds us accountable to reflection from our new staff
    • Allows space from our day to day to ensure we are caring for the workers