CPD example 1: supervision

Type of CPD

Supervision

Description

Attending clinical supervision, with a focus on Trauma Informed Practice

Date of CPD activity

1 November 2022

Describe what you have learnt from doing this CPD activity

I attended clinical supervision with the team, these are monthly sessions facilitated by CAMHS in CSC practitioners.

These sessions are led by and determined by the team's themes of discussion and relevant and current social work practice. We are able to bring whatever practice issues we like to reflect on. During these sessions we use systemic theory, which I firmly believe informs my practice, reflexivity and professional judgement.

Clinical supervision also enables and encourages me to reflect on my own learning needs and how I work from an evidence based and research informed position.

Within the sessions, as a manager I take a leadership role in volunteering my thoughts and contributing to the supervision, encouraging others to do the same. I openly share my beliefs and reflect on my own values, in doing so I can consider and where necessary address the impact they potentially have on my practice. I also role model and embed an open learning culture.

In this particular session which I am using for this CPD activity, we watched a clip, of a 'Ted Talk' regarding Trauma Informed Practice. We then reflected as a group on what resonated for us individually. I have learnt that a trauma exposure response looks different on everyone. On me, I notice I get headaches, am less emotionally available to my own family, and can display frustration far more readily, when I am exposed to trauma and when I am overwhelmed in my role. I have also learnt that as a collective, the team can have low morale, and being overwhelmed also can create a defensive response.

This level of self reflection was a challenge for me, and without clinical supervision and focusing on the impact of trauma in a caring profession, I feel I would have been less thoughtful about how I care for myself (or a lack of doing so) at work, directly affects how I then conduct myself out of work. For example if I work for 8 hours straight without a lunch break, to try and make up for absent team members and a relentless flow of work, I may find myself getting road rage, snapping at my family members or eating a take away as I am too tired to cook. These are ways in which I am unconsciously showing I am overwhelmed and under pressure. If I notice I am beginning to do these things, I have learnt I need to ask for support. If I notice someone else doing these things, I need to offer support.

Reflect on and describe the positive impact the CPD activity has had (or will have) on your practice and the people you work with

With the focus of one of the discussions being 'who cares for those who care for other?' this CPD impacted me as it reminded me of the importance of looking after myself, developing emotional intelligence, seeking support when I need it and recognising my own feelings and needs, in a job where it can become easy and normal to become desensitised and work on 'autopilot'.

The CPD has also impacted positively on my team, as I have learnt to remember it is crucial as a manger to lead by example, by things like taking lunch breaks, speaking up when I am feeling stressed and showing when I need support. As a manager, I have also ensured to give others 'permission' to take breaks despite the pressures, to book time off for leave and to seek peer support. By ensuring the team feel able to switch off and attend the clinical supervisions, this is also promoting a mutually supportive, open and caring learning culture.

This also benefits our partners and colleagues in other teams and disciplines as it promotes a cultural organisation of self reflexivity, and a human focussed approach which values ourselves and each other.

In turn, this then benefits the services users and wider community, as it means these ethics of compassion, mutual care, support and valuing each other in society, is embedded into our every day interface with the children young people and families we come into contact with. Conversations take a focus on how people are thinking and feeling, putting the lived experiences of children and their families at the core of what we do. In a fast paced, busy, challenging and timeframe driven team like the MASH, slowing down our thinking and remembering to adopt a human centred approach, reaps the benefits as rapport and respect can be quickly engendered.

Describe what you have learnt from discussing this CPD with a peer

When meeting with my peers, the other managers within my cohort, we have planned how we can use these clinical supervisions most effectively as a team. This includes thinking about issues which affect us specifically in a team taking new referrals, working with professionals from other cohorts and disciplines such as police, health and education. This also means reflecting on current themes and issues in today's society, and affecting social work practitioners specifically.

As managers, we think about how we can use these sessions as a manager cohort, reflecting with other managers about leadership and mentoring, and how to support and supervise the team. We have used the sessions to focus on being extremely short staffed as a team and the extra work that has created for those of us in the team, and identified ways we have boosted our resilience. We also attend some sessions with the social workers in the team, to think about issues which affect us all, and to enable team cohesion and support team morale. We also give the social workers freedom and a safe space in which to use the sessions as we ensure regularly that some sessions go ahead without managers present. We have asked them to self identify their developmental needs and how they wish to use clinical supervision, and have reinforced the idea that we must allow ourselves and each other 'permission' to take time out from the pressure of our every day job to have clinical supervision and spend time as a team, in peer reflection and discussions.

Within this specific session, we focussed on trauma, self care and the complexities of our identity in a front line caring role. We thought about the various types of self care we need, and which we offer to ourselves, and to each other, as a team as well as in our personal lives. We spoke about how we individually care for ourselves eg bubble baths, early nights or getting in a walk around the park at lunch time. We spoke about how we check in with each other to provide mutual 'peer' support such as by checking in after a difficult phone call, offering informal supervision, or providing a sense of humour in a tense office space. We spoke about how we recognise symptoms and indicators in ourselves and each other of when we are getting stressed, overworked or burned out eg, forgetting something we would usually remember, or something as simple as getting irritable or emotional.

We learnt that 'you can't pour from an empty teapot' is a good expression to remind ourselves how important it is in this profession, to take care of ourselves and each other, before we try to care for the service users we come into daily contact with.

Which parts of the CPD standard have you met by doing this activity?

• Standard 4.2: Use supervision and feedback to critically reflect on, and identify my learning needs, including how I use research and evidence to inform my practice.
• Standard 4.3: Keep my practice up to date and record how I use research, theories and frameworks to inform my practice and my professional judgement.