Welcome the Supervisee to the Meeting

Develop or confirm the agenda topics for discussion.

If you have not already set the agenda, ask the question, ‘What would you like to focus on in our discussion today?’ Most professional supervisors ask the initial question such as, ‘How are you today?’ ‘What’s been happening?’ or ‘How are you travelling today?’ This focuses the discussion within more of a narrow emphasis. Asking the question, ‘What would you like to focus on?’ provides an open space for the supervisee to set the agenda where it is needed the most. It provides a more meaningful and purposeful start to the supervision meeting.

Focus the discussion on agenda topics included by both parties.

Ensure that supervision discussion is balanced to meet the holistic needs of the supervisee – use the PASE model quadrants to ensure that all focus areas are covered throughout the year.

Document supervision minutes as you progress through the discussion, or make dot points to write up the supervision minutes after the meeting if you need to.

• Evaluate the focus of the discussion to ensure it has met the needs of the supervisee – you might use the reflective questions we have explored or use a scale 0–10 to gauge how effective the discussion was (0, not effective at all; 10, highly effective).

• Both parties sign off on the supervision schedule and supervision minutes if completed in the meeting.

• Summarise any action items.

• Discuss any follow-up required.

• Set another time to meet.

• Put time in an electronic calendar, diary or schedule.

• Close the discussion.

• Complete supervision minutes and email to the supervisee – ensure that both parties’ names/signatures are recorded.

• Supervisor completes any follow-up actions they agreed to do prior to the next meeting (O’Donoghue, 2015).

Follow-Up in between Meetings

There will be times where the supervisee needs to touch base or consult with the supervisor on something between meetings. Internal professional supervisors may have a lot of contact with the supervisee between meetings given their proximity to each other in the workplace and the focus of the role of line manager and supervisee. If you are an internal supervisor, you will be able to negotiate in the intake meeting (first meeting) if and what type of contact you may have between meetings. As an external professional supervisor, it is also important to discuss with supervisees if and what contact can occur in between meetings via email or phone (Beddoe & Davys, 2010).

There will be times where additional supervision meetings are scheduled or where there is an urgent need for a supervision meeting that falls outside the usual schedule. No matter what contact is required, minutes need to be recorded for any discussion fifteen minutes or more and copy provided to the supervisee for their record. Some supervisees/organisations do not require supervision minutes or a record of meetings to be documented. However, due to the ethical and industrial nature of supervision, it is advisable to complete the supervision schedule/record log and minutes or notes in case the organisation needs them in the future.

Maintaining Professional Boundaries/Feedback

There may be times as a new professional supervisor that you need to deal with reluctance, resistance and conflict situations. You may also provide supervision for supervisees who experience health and well-being or physical health challenges. You may face times where a supervisee will be experiencing issues in their personal life. It is important to know how to manage these complexities, how to provide feedback at the right time and understand the most appropriate language to use (Carroll, 2007b; Egan, 2012). Your role is not to be a counsellor or therapist, so refer to a specialist professional or agency if situations arise and the supervisee requires alternative professional assistance such as counselling.

It is equally important to remember the boundaries of the professional relationship. If you have a dual role as a line manager and professional supervisor, be mindful of how you manage any potential boundary situations. When it comes to any performance issues, there is a difference between having to deal with diminished performance in the supervisee’s role and discussing the professional work of the supervisee. In most organisations, these situations are managed through a performance process. Be clear on your professional boundaries and ethical decision-making framework. If you are confronted with a difficult situation, even if you think you know what to do, feel confident to discuss this with your own supervisor so you can ensure your approach and decision are right. The most effective way to respond to challenges in supervision is through the use of particular questions and statements. Having clear communication that demonstrates care and support is crucial in the supervisory relationship.

Sustainable Supervision

Professional supervision works best if the supervisee is able to choose their own supervisor. This is often not the case when the internal line and professional supervisor are the same person. For supervision to remain effective, the following will assist in maintaining stability of the relationship:

• A committed culture of professional supervision in the workplace.

• A solid relationship built on trust, rapport and open communication.

• Awareness of the dynamics in the supervisor/supervisee relationship.

• Ensure supervision is frequent and regular.

• Rebook meetings that are cancelled or postponed, aiming for twelve professional supervision meetings each calendar year.

• Both parties engage in ongoing professional supervision.

• The supervisor has been engaged in quality professional supervision training.

• Be invested for the long term.

• Remember it is a privileged space – confidentiality and privacy are important.

• Evaluate supervision regularly through a formal framework.

• Know what and how to document supervision meeting minutes.

To provide you with an example, this scenario occurred to me a few years ago where a supervisee was engaged in an industrial hearing with their employer and the supervision minutes were requested as part of the process. The external supervisor, employee and employer had to go to the industrial tribunal. The topic of support and supervision was raised as the magistrate wanted to know how the organisation was providing support to the staff member in their role. As a result, the magistrate requested a copy of all meeting and supervision minutes as part of the hearing evidence before he handed down his decision.

If any supervision meetings are cancelled or postponed, it is useful to record on the document that supervision did not take place. This assists the supervisee and yourself as the supervisor in the future if the organisation, industrial tribunal/court or the like request details of the supervision process. It also ensures there are no gaps in information. It is much harder to look back over supervision minutes after a longer period of time and try to recall if a supervision meeting took place. Ensuring that every supervision session is documented in the supervision schedule demonstrates a history of what took place.

Supervision minutes need to only detail appropriate and relevant information. They may include what both parties may be required to do in between meetings; outline what key things you are working on in supervision; and be used to review what has been covered from previous supervision meetings (Falvey & Cohen, 2004; Hensley, 2002). It can be challenging at times to know what to record in minutes, so here are some tips for consideration. Where possible, use best practice principles in writing your minutes so they are easily followed over time.

Writing Principles for Effective Supervision Minutes

• Be precise and concise as if you were recording client notes. Supervision minutes are the same. Often meeting minutes include long and detailed information, but they do not need to be like this. Talk with the supervisee in the first meeting about what you both think is appropriate and relevant to record.

• Only write what is purposeful, meaningful and intentional. We are all busy professionals, so writing in a precise and considered manner helps to save time, ensure minutes are accurate and are easily followed.

• Map the minutes to any supervision model template you may be using. This makes the minutes easier to track in terms of follow-up and focus for the meeting.

• Ensure that any supervision minute template does not have more than four headings. Like the PASE model, any supervision agenda item fits into any of the four key headings of the model. Often supervision templates have more than seven or eight headings, and it is difficult for the supervisor to cover all headings in an hour and then document the discussion. As a guide, having a maximum of three topics for the supervision agenda can usually fit within an hour depending how much depth of conversation you go into.

• Ensure that the supervision agenda and meeting minute template(s) used are the same. Often supervisors or organisations have an agenda template, and the minute template is a different document. From a brain perspective, the supervisee has to shift focus across two documents, so try and integrate all supervision documents to have a look and feel that is the same. This will save the supervisee a lot of energy and time.

Who Is Responsible for Minute Taking?

The never-ending question is, Who takes the minutes? There are many views on this, and it is important to discuss with the supervisee who will take the minutes each meeting. I take supervision minutes electronically as I have moved away from taking any paper-based minutes; however, you will find what works best for you and your supervisees. If you take electronic minutes, it is important to ensure you cover privacy and confidentiality using passwords and security software. You may like to take a laptop into meetings, but have it to the side of you so you don’t break the body language or communication. I usually document minutes as we talk and because I can type fairly fast, I get most of the relevant things from our discussion in the minutes.

I also have a supervision minute book with a copy of the PASE model on each page, so if I write the minutes in the meeting I document things so the minutes are finished in the meeting, which saves me time. Because I write the minutes using the principles of writing in the third person, they usually only take me about four minutes per supervision meeting. If you do use a laptop to document minutes during the meeting, it is crucial to maintain appropriate body language and eye contact, so you don’t break the connection between you and the supervisee. When working with a new supervisee, begin without the laptop until rapport is fully built. Discuss the process of using the laptop in the intake meeting and where a supervisee prefers to have minutes recorded on hard copy, accept this request and perhaps raise it again as the relationship develops (McMahon & Simons, 2014).

Where possible, it is helpful to schedule supervision meetings a year in advance. It will save time, so you don’t have to book the next meeting at the end of each meeting. I develop schedules for my supervisees each November so supervisees receive their supervision schedule in early December each year. I also follow up with sending electronic meeting requests to ensure that all supervisees have meeting times in their diaries. Even though there are times when meetings need to be changed, having supervision meetings scheduled ahead of time can assist with planning and preparation of workflow and other requirements in the supervisory role. It also assists supervisees to do their planning throughout the year as well (McMahon & Patton, 2001).

There are still times when the supervisee documents the minutes. The supervisee can change the minutes at any time to ensure they feel they reflect the conversation and they remain in the supervisee’s file. Because the files are held electronically, the supervisee has access to their file at all times. It brings a sense of transparency to the process as we both share the same file, and there are always things from the file that form part of the supervision discussion agenda. If any part of the minutes need changing, or the supervisee feels there needs to be additional information, I usually ask them to change the minutes and then save in the file. We always discuss any changes first to ensure they accurately reflect the conversation. All files are password protected and the supervisee and I are the only ones to access the file.

The supervision minutes are usually written in the third person unless there are particular quotations that need to be included. Instead of saying, ‘I discussed with Hannah when she is going to take her leave…’, I would document, ‘SV (supervision) discussion included when H is going to take her leave’, or ‘H discussed in supervision when she is thinking of taking leave’.

You can write your minutes using the supervisee’s first name, both initials or just the first initial of the supervisee’s first name. Because the supervisee’s name is on the front sheet of the minutes as you see in Table 5.1, I usually only include the supervisee’s first initial in the body of the minutes. This makes it quicker to record information rather than the supervisee’s full name. I also refer to myself as SVor – supervisor – as this can save time when writing the minutes. Whichever way you decide to write the minutes, check if your organisation has a preferred way of documenting discussions.

Consider supervision minutes with the importance and seriousness they are meant to be regarded with. Over time, many supervisees use their minutes for all sorts of reasons. Type them up as the supervisee is going to refer to them in preparation for the next supervision meeting, or they may use information for other reporting processes in their role. I usually write brief minutes, unless there is something important to include, for example, around the supervisee’s self-care or what we have focused on in relation to a client case review, etc. When the supervisee is reviewing the minutes, seeing things before them in writing can embed and anchor key messages instead of only being discussed verbally.

Where you have any concerns regarding the supervisory relationship, supervision process, the supervisee’s conduct, etc., it is important to consider what to include in the minutes, and be open and transparent with the supervisee about what you are including and why. This can be difficult to maintain a positive and trusting relationship, so the use of language and messaging is crucial. Where you think you need to, provide more detail in the minutes and go through what you have included with the supervisee (Watkins & Milne, 2014).

To show you a couple of different examples, the first set of minutes in Table 5.1 has been written using the four quadrants from the PASE model. The key focus areas are Practice, Administration, Support and Educative. Discussion topics in supervision are identified within these quadrants, and this allows the supervisor and supervisee to focus the discussion and questions from the different perspectives of the model quadrants. The second example of minutes has been included as Table 5.2 to demonstrate what to include in minutes where you have a challenging situation regarding the conduct of the supervisee in relation to continually being late for work.

The minutes in Table 5.2 have also been written using the PASE model, and you will see that they have been developed using the Support quadrant to demonstrate to the supervisee that despite being late for work a lot and it being an issue at the present time, the supervisor has raised the issue in supervision in a supportive way with the hope to having it resolved.

These examples demonstrate how the supervisor can raise the issue with Ben about the need to attend work on time, and how to document this while being supportive. If the issue continued over time, the supervisor would then talk to Ben about moving the discussion out of supervision to a performance discussion.

Chapter 5 Summary

This chapter has reviewed how to undertake subsequent meetings and provides an overview of how to write the minutes, the type of supervision minutes you may have and two examples of supervision minutes. Taking minutes in supervision is important to keep a record of the focus of the discussion and any actions that came out of supervision. This chapter has also explored the need for appropriate professional boundaries between supervisor and supervisee. Only record information that is relevant and purposeful, be concise and precise, and adhere to privacy and confidentiality.

Key things to consider in Chapter 5 about subsequent supervision meetings.