Group supervision offers a place for us to further develop our thinking with others about our work, a place that can contribute to giving us the ‘edge’ to offer our best service to our clients and sustain ourselves as practitioners.
It provides an opportunity to share our experiences in a safe environment, gain insight with others, offer our knowledge and exchange ideas with fellow developers, receive useful feedback, challenge our own assumptions and norms, gain clarity on our effectiveness, have space to think, be energised, invest in what’s precious, you and your time, and finally contribute and engage within an abundance of resource within the Oasis network.
Experienced supervisor and Oasis consultant, Benita Treanor, hosts a monthly supervision conference call. Supervision is a reflective opportunity to review progress and consider the impact of work upon oneself. The supervisor is not directly involved in the outcome and so remains impartial.
It is a collaborative process that encompasses monitoring, developing and supporting individuals in within their context to provide an opportunity to enhance practice, widen perspective and make the most of a valued resource to enable the development and potential of the client.
These calls create a peer-based learning space to learn and develop within the Oasis approach. By choosing group supervision, practitioners can share their experience, knowledge and understanding.
They can discover creative and innovative approaches to our practice and reconnect to their own resilience and renewal. Clients are not identified within the sessions and issues remain confidential.
Benita says: “It’s a great start to my day, hosting a call. There is an invitation to step out of my familiar comfort zone and enter the unknown with other developers who are curious to learn and connect.
“The calls are brief and focused in nature which seems to enhance and further develop our ability to be in relationship, get to the point with consideration and respect. I am heartened by people’s generosity to share their experiences, tools and techniques with a real sense of care for one another’s space.
“I leave the call energised and restored, knowing that our exchange has been of value to our practice, each other and to the wider context of our peer-based learning community.”
As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally – our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don’t know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time.
Margaret WheatleyTurning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, 2002