Instructional
Across nursing and healthcare, the supervision of students is an important component of training and learning. Clinical placements and the experiential learning experience are essential for developing and applying learned theoretical knowledge in the clinical environment. Undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate and new staff are all some of the unique supervision opportunities for nurses to support. Not every nurse will be interested in formal education, but it is likely they will be a preceptor or supervisor. Therefore it is important nurses understand the skills required for effective supervision. Skills such as reflective practice, assessment and feedback are part of this supervision. Being made to feel welcome and recognised as an important part of the team, just basic socialisation aspects to the nursing team.
Supervision
Supervision is defined “as a formal process of professional support and learning which enables individual practitioners to develop knowledge and competence, and is acknowledged to be a life-long process” (Martin, Copley, & Tyack, 2014, p. 201).
“Clinical Supervision is regular, protected time for facilitated, in-depth reflection on clinical practice” (Bond and Holland,1998 p. 12)
Models of Supervision
Proctor’s model of supervision is perhaps the most commonly used within health care. “Supervision towards reflective practice” (Proctor, 2010). Proctor’s framework focuses on 3 areas of supervision:
- Normative: managerial aspect of practice and learning, such as professional CPD and core mandatory training.
- Formative: educative aspect of developing knowledge and skills in professional development and use self reflection for self awareness development. The aim is “to become increasingly reflective upon practice” within the supervision process (Proctor 2001, p.31).
- Restorative: supportive aspect for personal development, improving stress management and burnout prevention.
Clinical Supervision Skills Review Tool
This Clinical Supervision Skills Review Tool is a helpful resource to review your supervision skills. More about this resource in the video below.
Other resources:
- Feedback: Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2013). Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(6), 698-712.
- Debriefing: this can also be used for providing effective and constructive feedback.
- Experiential learning.
Note: This blog post resources and notes were taken from attending an education session ran by Monash University on supervision.
References
Carrucan-Wood, L. (2015). Preceptorship: Grounding and growing the next generation. Nursing Review.
Department of Health and Human Services. (2015) Clinical Supervision Skills Review Tool. Victorian Government, Melbourne.
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of educational research, 77(1), 81-112.
Martin, P., Copley, J., & Tyack, Z. (2014). Twelve tips for effective clinical supervision based on a narrative literature review and expert opinion. Medical teacher, 36(3), 201-207.
Proctor, B. (2010). Training for the supervision alliance: Attitude, Skills and Intention. In Routledge handbook of clinical supervision (pp. 51-62). Routledge.
Sloan, G., & Watson, H. (2002). Clinical supervision models for nursing: structure, research and limitations. Nursing Standard (through 2013), 17(4), 41.
Winstanley, J. (2000). Manchester clinical supervision scale. Nursing Standard (through 2013), 14(19), 31.