Professional supervision. Aly McNicoll, New Zealand Coaching and Mentoring Centre
Professional supervision is regular, dedicated time for in-depth reflection on our practice. It is an integral part of many health care professions continuing training and development. Professional supervision has been shown to reduce carer fatigue, increase work satisfaction and improve the ability to manage clients.
Being able to reflect on and discuss our work as a dietitian with someone (i.e. professional supervision) may help us deal with some of the challenges in our industry. For example:
- We often work with clients with chronic health issues. Their lives and situations may be complicated and messy. We may have feelings of being ineffective or helpless in being able to assist them.
- We often do not have access to colleagues to debrief with. We may work alone in private practice or as the sole dietitian in an organisation.
In her presentation Aly provides an overview of professional supervision:
- What is supervision?
- What are the benefits?
- What might go wrong in supervision?
- The importance of confidentiality
- What to expect from a supervision session
- What to bring to supervision
Finding a supervisor can be difficult and expensive. One consideration is to form a small (<6) professional supervision group and share the cost. The supervisor does not have to be a dietitian they could be a psychologist, trained supervisor or counsellor.
Aly McNicoll is a Director of the New Zealand Coaching & Mentoring Centre and works throughout Australia and New Zealand with organisations who want to use coaching, mentoring or supervision to enhance leadership and learning. She runs supervision skills training for most of the NZ District Health Boards and has introduced peer group supervision to over 10,000 allied health staff in Hospital & Health Services throughout NSW and Queensland. Aly is a regular presenter at international conferences and has a commitment to growing our pool of supervisors to give more people, more access to good supervision. She is also a keen ukulele player and has a set of 20 ukuleles that she uses in her leadership development workshops to remind people of the importance of continuing to learn, no matter what stage you are at in your career.
To register for the presentation and associated documents including the assessment quiz click here