Picture of Lisa and Liz

43. Relationship-based supervision

Liz Beddoe and Lisa Warwick discuss the importance of relationship-based supervision for the retention of experienced practitioners in social work.

It is well established that good, reflective, relationship-based supervision is essential for effective social work practice. It enables practitioners to reflect in depth on their work, including its emotional impact on them, and to discuss next steps with the individuals and families they are working with. However, in the UK where an audit culture dominates statutory social work in Local Authorities and the NHS, this type of supervision is often not available to practitioners, which is contributing to the retention crisis.

In this episode I speak to Dr Lisa Warwick and Professor Liz Beddoe about a case study of a supervision meeting they wrote to demonstrate the effect of good relationship-based supervision on the retention of an experienced practitioner in social work.

Liz Beddoe is a Professor of Social Work at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Her research interests include critical perspectives on social work education and supervision; social work professional identity, student hardship in social work education, and the experiences of migrant social workers.

Dr Lisa Warwick is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK. She has been involved in a variety of research projects concerning child and family social work and is particularly interested in the relationships between professionals, families and the structural factors that inform these relationships.

The full text of the paper we discuss can be found here:

Warwick, L., Beddoe, L., Leigh, J., Disney, T., Ferguson, H., & Cooner, T. S. (2022) The power of relationship-based supervision in supporting social work retention: A case study from long-term ethnographic research in child protection. Qualitative Social Work, doi: 10.1177/14733250221113015

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