Developing Leadership Excellence

Book excerpt: Professional Supervision is a core component of maintaining accreditation for many professions particularly in the community and human services sector. Clinical professions such as Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Teachers, Nurses, Midwives, Doctors, Counsellors and Psychologists are all required or encouraged to access professional supervision regularly as part of maintaining professional standards in their roles, self-care and role accountability. Professional supervision is the most effective space to reflect on practice, engage in ongoing growth and development as well as ensure effective client outcomes. Within the helping, teaching and human service sectors, managers are increasingly being expected to provide some form of supervision for employees in both their professional and administrative streams, however very few training providers and resources exist to help support managers and supervisors to develop their supervisory skills or provide them with a clear framework to implement supervision. As a business and HR consulting and training professional, Tracey Harris has developed a systematic framework that ensures supervision remains effective and sustainable over time. As part of the supervision platform and system, Tracey has developed a range of unique resources, tools and documents for beginning supervisory practitioners to assist them to develop the necessary skills to be effective in their new role. She has developed seven integrated supervision models that provide a common language framework for all roles in the organisational and business context. Developing Supervisory Excellence: A Practice Guide for the New Professional Supervisor provides those new to the supervision role and process with an evidence based integrated framework, supervision model and resources to conduct effective professional supervision. It is unique and the first text of its kind to integrate the existing frameworks of supervision into a comprehensive model of practice, providing a clear procedural guide for conducting professional and operational supervision. In addition, it provides new supervisors with a range of administrative resources to support, record, track and evaluate the supervision process.