Field Instruction: Developmental Stages Offering Supervisory Opportunities

1. Field Instruction: Developmental Stages Offering Supervisory Opportunities Loretta Vitale Saks NCSSS Office of Field Instruction September 2005

2. Overview of presentation • Developmental stages of field • How they may affect supervisory process • Issues for supervision • Tools for supervision

3. Field Internship Developmental Stages • Stage 1: Anticipation … Honeymoon • Stage 2: Disillusionment & Confronting Reality • Stage 3: Competence & Mastery • Stage 4: Closure & Termination The information in this presentation is taken from Cochrane, Susan F. & Hanley, Marla Martin (1999)Learning through field: A developmental approach. (1999). Allyn & Bacon: Boston, MA; and Sweitzer, H. Frederick and King, Mary A. (2004). The successful internship: transformation & empowerment. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company: Canada.

4. Stages & the Supervisory Process • How student moves through stages will affect the supervisory process, offering: • Obstacles to the supervisory relationship • Opportunities for growth • Task accomplishment • Increasingly complex assignments • Concerns that can be discussed or avoided • Hoped for resolutions vs. staying ‘stuck’

5. Stage 1: Anticipation… Honeymoon • Positive expectations as internship begins • Also … some anxieties • Feel vulnerable and self-conscious • What will role be? • What if …? • Will my field instructor …? • Will my student …? • Important to identify support systems • For student • For field instructor too!

6. Stage 1: Issues for supervision • What is supervision? • = support, teaching, administration • Offer safe environment • Supportive yet challenging • Open discussion of concerns • Clear supervisory boundaries • Clarify roles, expectations, and policies Kadushin, A. (1976). Supervision in social work. New York: Columbia University Press.

7. Stage 1: Tools for supervision • Orientation • Key for helping student feel welcome and knowledgeable about agency • Initial learning activities likely to be more passive than active • Attend to administrative tasks • Supervisory agenda • Helps student assume responsibility for learning • Have student relate classroom learning to practice • Learning Plan • Can help student individualize placement • Clarify learning goals & activities

8. Stage 1: Tools for supervision • Communication Styles Inventory • Useful tool for discussing communication styles & supervisory relationship • How we respond in ‘normal’ and ‘stressful’ situations

9. Stage 2: Disillusionment & Confronting Reality • “What’s wrong?” stage • May feel frustration, anger, confusion, panic, stress • May become disillusioned … • with agency • with field instructor • with social work • “This isn’t what I thought it would be”

10. Stage 2: Issues for supervision • Help student develop skills in receiving and giving feedback • Help student examine expectations • Normalize feelings and behaviors • Give permission for student to make mistakes • Necessary for growth

11. Stage 2: Issues for supervision • Encourage student to confront doubts and fears • with peers • with field instructor • with integrative seminar professor • Personal issues surfacing in supervision? • Overreactions to clients &/or field instructor? • Transference/countertransference issues? • Refer to CUA Counseling Center • Contact Counseling Center social workers for referrals

12. Stage 2: Tools for supervision • Supervision as time for ‘checking in’ • Refer back to CSI if relationship is difficult • Refer back to Learning Plan to see how progressing • Assist students with tasks • Review assignments • Agency paper • Process recordings • Agency-required documentation

13. Stage 3: Competence & Mastery • Confidence grows • More aware • More active • More analytical • Really invested in the work • Seek more challenging assignments • More tuned in to ethical issues • Learn to leave worries at agency • Compromise between reality & expectations • Take more initiative in learning

14. Stage 3: Issues for supervision • Help student evaluate own practice • Review growth • Is student seeking additional challenges? • Identify what learning is still needed

15. Stage 3: Tools for supervision • Review process recordings, assessments, macro assignments • Interviewing and assessment skills • Use of self • Beginning to apply theory to interview or task • Revisit Learning Plan • Early Assessment • Discuss where growth most needed • Review Final Evaluation to check that NCSSS expectations are being met

16. Stage 4: Closure & Termination • Ambivalent process for all involved! • “A process everyone would like to ignore” • Time for reflection … • On past experiences with endings • On growth and learning • Use learning to develop new goals and plans Much of this section is taken from Danowski, William A. (2005). In the field, a real-life survival guide for the social work internship. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

17. Stage 4: Issues in Supervision • Start the closure process early • How does your agency deal with termination with interns? • Exploration of students’ feelings about … • Leaving the internship setting • Terminating with clients • Passing on incomplete tasks/projects to others • End of supervisory relationship

18. Stage 4: Issues in Supervision • Parallel process • Intern-client termination field instructor-student termination • Complicated feelings: ambivalence, confusion, sadness, relief • What next?

19. Stage 4: Issues in Supervision • Talk about clients’ feelings about termination • ‘Experts at termination’ – may have had numerous social workers • How can termination help client grow in relationships? • Mourn loss of relationship but hopefulness of taking something new with you

20. Stage 4: Tools in supervision • Supervisory agenda • Process recordings, case presentations, reports, projects • Another look at the Learning Plan • Have objectives been met? • New goals: discussion of career paths in social work • NCSSS End-of-Year Evaluation of Field Participants • Good opportunity to evaluate self as field instructor

21. Enjoy the journey!