Why we need the guidelines

Supervision is central to developing and sustaining the sector’s workforces. It allows the exploration of:

• roles and responsibilities of sector practitioners, including risk assessment, therapeutic support, engagement, safety planning and collaborative multi-agency responses to family violence
• roles and responsibilities of supervisors
• adult, child and young person victim survivors’ experience and narrative
• how to work in a nuanced way with young people who can be both victim survivors of and display family and sexual violence
• respecting victim survivors as experts of their own lives and valuing their assessments of their own safety and needs
• how to practise safe, non-collusive communication with perpetrators
• anti-collusive practices which invite personal accountability for perpetrators’ use of family violence and sexual violence, and their related failure to protect children by using violence
• gendered drivers of family violence such as the beliefs, attitudes and social norms about gender that can lead to condoning of violence against women and rigid gender stereotyping
• both perceived and real risks to supervisee safety, including fears practitioners have working directly with perpetrators^[1] or providing after-hours outreach services
• applying an intersectional lens and understanding supervisee/supervisor biases, including how people from First Nations, LGBTIQA+, culturally diverse communities or at-risk age groups may experience barriers, discrimination and inequality
• providing practitioners with lived experience of family violence and sexual assault with practice support and encouragement to practise self-care
• providing First Nations practitioners with support to carry the cultural load
• how to embed cultural safety, in line with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety framework^[2]
• how a supervisee's family of origin^[3] or creation may affect their client assessments and interactions
• how to be more strengths-based and collaborative with clients, colleagues and other professionals
• individual practitioner and organisational power, and structural and systemic privilege and oppressions across the sector^[4]
• the multi-faceted nature of supervision, including reflection, case discussions, support, professional development, clinical and managerial functions.

Supervision can support practitioners to enhance risk assessment, therapeutic support, engagement and safety planning. It also supports supervisors to enhance their leadership skills, understanding of workforce dynamics and needs and the provision of reflective supervision.

The sector has a highly skilled, dedicated, and resilient workforce, who, for decades, have embraced the importance of supervision and reflective practice (active process of witnessing an experience, examining it, and learning from it). The prevalence and severity of family violence have escalated. This, combined with the prescribed responsibilities under the Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) Framework, including a greater focus on collaborative practice and intersectionality, means providing effective supervision has never been more crucial.

The guidelines do not set out to change what is already working within the sector, but will:

• provide an opportunity for programs and organisations to review their supervision policies and practices and consider sector thinking and what other programs have found useful
• apply to family violence, sexual assault and child wellbeing sectors, acknowledging that these workforces have different skill sets and role requirements
• set the foundation for achieving more uniform, standard definitions, models, principles and practices of supervision across the state
• explore complex concepts and theories in terms of how they relate to supervision and provide further reading if the sector wants to delve deeper
• support the commitment government made in the Dhelk Dja Partnership Agreement of ensuring self-determined, strengths-based, trauma-informed, and culturally safe practices are built into policies and practice, and the broader family violence service system and its workforce
• signal to potential graduates and career changers entering the sector that their learning, support and wellbeing needs will be taken seriously
• support a culture of learning and professional growth
• invigorate conversations about best practice and some of the tensions and challenges inherent in providing regular and effective supervision.

References

[1] Family Safety Victoria, Family violence multi-agency risk assessment and management framework, Victorian Government, 2018, accessed 27 Feb 2023.

[2] Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety framework, DFFH website, 2019, accessed 13 June 2023.

[3] B Lackie, ‘The families of origin of social workers’, Clinical Social Work Journal, 1983, 11(4): 309–322, doi:10.1007/BF00755898.

[4] Family Safety Victoria, Family violence multi-agency risk assessment and management framework.

[5] J Wonnacott, Mastering social work supervision, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 2012.