Supervising social workers in alcohol and other drug work

1. Supervising social workers in alcohol and other drug work Wulf Livingston Senior Lecturer in Social Work – Glyndwr University 1

2. AIMS OF PRESENTATION 2 • The context • Supervision as an experience • Considerations – what and who’s knowledge • The key elements of supervision – alcohol and social work • Using process and experience (rather than content) models of supervision – theory and example

3. 3

4. Alcohol and Social Work a Context • Correlation with social work client base • The perceived alcohol problem (symptom or problem) • Strategic responses (Labours addiction) • From CAT to Case Management, with some DANOS thrown in • Ability to parent or Negative Hair Follicle Tests? • (AAPPQ/DAPPQ/SADAPPQ any old PPQ) • Inadequacies (role, support, adequacy and legitimacy) = Training 4

5. Social Worker Supervision – a context Time Caseloads Life Demands Clients What to do? Help? Conflicting or Complimentary? Consistency and Fairness? Inspection Monitoring Supervisors -Four Heads or one? Managers - Ownership Fear Hopelessness Inadequacy Legitimacy Getting Supervision? Theories Models Philosophies Approaches

6. Case Management Supervision – Balancing audit of accountability with improved staff developmental understanding • Climbie – Laming (2003) • Informing case not practitioner • Risk and case management not social work? • Reflection -Schon • Knowledge Dialogue (Typologies beyond the codified -Collingwood, Drury Hudson, Meemeduma, Trevithick ..)

7. Challenging the two assumptions • Not our work – need to manage risk, by referral to others (Not a supervision and skills conversation) • If we do work, we need more training to inform the knowledge we use (Is alcohol knowledge deficiency issue?)

8. DRINKING LANAGUAGE 8 “Now, I*** drank like a fish…..” (A) “But my grandfather, wasn’t a teetotaller but wasn’t, he wouldn’t drink really, he was … you remember the Band of Hope?” (A) “…….who has a sherry at eleven o’clock and she’s not an old biddy, she’s…..” (A) “……the other one was a much older male and an alcoholic and all of his friends were alcoholics, so there was this kind of community of alcoholism….” (B) “Not a dependency where they need to drink alcohol but if I do go out at the weekend I’m going to get leathered and I’m going to have a laugh and that’s how he was and that’s how he explained his alcohol use really and....” (C)

9. Drinking Language (2) • “He was drinking out but he would also bring it home, as well. So, he’d go out on a Saturday and he’d come back plastered, you know…not falling over drunk...not wetting his pants drunk …” (D) • “….. he is an alcoholic, and he owns his own business and everyone knows he is, and it’s this thing of, “Oh, you know, it’s a shame isn’t it?” ‘cause it’s like every now and again he will go on a binge drink and it’s funny you know that he walks home and falls into the hedge and – but it’s a known thing in the village that this is how he is ….” (E)

10. Non classroom influences 10 “I must admit I look at my colleagues, forty plus, they do like a glass of wine in the evening. They do smell of alcohol in the morning, when they come to work and they’re driving to work.” “I saw it at first hand what alcohol can do to people, change them as a person, changes their character”

11. UNCODIFIED KNOWLEDGE (Direct Experience – Interactional and Informal) Life Drinking Experience Work NARRATIVE AND DISCLOSURE Family Self Social Self Others Clients Media Culture Training Supervision “Big Case” PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE “Alcohol” PRIOR TRAJECTORIES Values ETHICSLEARNING STYLE SUBJECTIVE DISCOURSE AND ACCOUNT Social Worker Client Academic Theory Professional Qualification Research Policy Legislation CURRENT ORGANISATION CODIFIED KNOWLEDGE 11

12. What is Supervision? What is it for? Supervisees Clients Quality Protecting Agency Caseload Audit

14. Thinking and Doing not just Doing

15. Towards Self Supervision (1) • Stage 1 The Supervisee is an Apprentice • skills development • understanding theory and it's application • building up the confidence and self-belief. • Stage 2 The supervisee is a journeyman craftsman. • how can I help this particular client • starting to make his / her work a reflection of themselves. Knowledge - Understanding  - Application - Reflection on practice -

16. Towards Self Supervision (2) • Stage 3 The supervisee is an independent Craftsman. - seeing work/therapy in it' s wider context and to deal with the relationship process. • Stage 4  The supervisee is a master craftsman. - the experienced practitioner with the ability to self evaluate in the wider context. Analysis -Synthesis –Evaluation – Reflection on Self.

17. Process Supervision • Not external content but what is in the room • Not just client feelings, behaviour and relationships but those of supervision/supervisee. • Exploring the here and now to learn -more about self -more about clients • Supervision as reflective mirror on practice • In action and counter transference • Principles

18. What • (1) Transferable skills and knowledge • (2) Risk (Problem) or Complicating Factor (Symptom) • (3) Codified Knowledge (identification, assessment, working with and referral on) • (4) Experience – (process with client and in supervision) • (5) Wider Drinking influences (own, family culture, society, colleagues and agency)

20. Example (1) –What? • “Quite a few times actually, just – this is going to sound really bad now, it’s just, like I say, when we drink, I say, “we” collectively, as in me and my friends, someone always tends to fall over or something happens or you know the usual, and then the next morning, I don’t know how many times we’ve been – but you know, to casualty ‘cause someone’s wrist has swollen up or they can’t walk the next day or something like that ..”

21. Example (2) Process - supervision • Joining the team – individual and group discussion • Discussed feelings prior to starting • Shared feelings and relationships as she began • (some on going –feelings , relationships and behaviour including drinking) • Shared feelings as she ended

22. What did we learn (2) • Mirror – the step parent, child, new born, • Enriched understanding of beginning middle and ending of relationships • The power of changing dynamics • Drinking in context • Inclusion and exclusion • Acceptance and Resistance • Changing roles

23. Any one of us looking back at the human pain and social distress of others to which we have been exposed, not to mention our own, must surely question what makes us suppose we can practice effectively without such a regular, conscientious examination of our own work, of what might improve it and what impedes it, and of our own feelings about it.” Swain 1998