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Overview of Supervision
There are numerous definitions of supervision.
For the purposes of these supervision standards,
professional supervision is defined as the
relationship between supervisor and supervisee
in which the responsibility and accountability
for the development of competence, demeanor,
and ethical practice take place. The supervisor is
responsible for providing direction to the
supervisee, who applies social work theory,
standardized knowledge, skills, competency, and
applicable ethical content in the practice setting.
The supervisor and the supervisee both share
responsibility for carrying out their role in this
collaborative process.
Supervision encompasses several interrelated
functions and responsibilities. Each of these
interrelated functions contributes to a larger
responsibility or outcome that ensures clients
are protected and that clients receive competent
and ethical services from professional social
workers. During supervision, services received
by the client are evaluated and adjusted, as
needed, to increase the benefit to the client. It is
the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that the
supervisee provides competent, appropriate, and
ethical services to the client.
There are many models of supervision described
in the literature, ranging from traditional,
authoritarian models to more collaborative
models. Different models of supervision place
emphasis, in varying degrees, on the client, the
supervisor, the supervisee, or the context in
which the supervision takes place. Ideally, the
supervisor and the supervisee use a collaborative
process when a supervision model is selected;
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