Staff Supervision and Appraisal

The registered person must ensure that all employees:

• Undertake appropriate continuing professional development;
• Receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience; and
• Have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year.

The registered person must have systems in place so that all staff, including the manager, receive supervision of their practice from an appropriately qualified and experienced professional, which allows them to reflect on their practice and the needs of the children assigned to their care. Supervision should be focused on children's experiences, needs, plans and feedback.

The emotional impact of the work on staff should be recognised and managed by leaders and managers. Staff supervision must enable staff to reflect and act upon how their own feelings and behaviour may be affected by the behaviour of the children they care for.

Professionally qualified staff employed by the Home, e.g. teachers or social workers, should be provided with relevant professional or clinical supervision by an appropriately qualified and experienced professional.

Supervision must be recorded effectively. A written record must be kept detailing the time, date and length of each supervision held for each member of staff including the manager. The record is signed by the supervisor and the member of staff at the end of the supervision. It is good practice for both the person giving the supervision and the staff member to have a copy of the record.

Staff and leaders must receive effective support and challenge, including through team and management meetings, to ensure that their professional development  results in the right environment for good practice to thrive.

All staff must have their performance and fitness to carry out their role formally appraised at least once annually. This appraisal should take into account, where reasonable and practical, the views of other professionals who have worked with the staff member over the year and children in the Home’s care. As part of the performance management process, poor performance should be addressed by a timely plan to bring about improvement.

Supervision Structure – Each session will contain the following as identified areas for discussion:

• How are you feeling? Including Annual Leave; Absence Management; Review of Individual Risk Assessment;
• Reflective Practice - What has gone well this month?
• Reflective Practice - What is one thing you would like to work on;
• Review of actions from previous session;
• Safeguarding discussion;
• Relationships with the children and young people;
• Professional relationships;
• Service Development and individual areas of responsibility;
• Practice;
• Quality Standards;
• Learning and Development;
• Other agenda items;
• Actions from this session;
• Confirmations.

Supervision sessions

• Sessions are also to support the supervisee and to encourage reflective practice and development and for colleagues to raise any concerns in confidence. Must be conducted at regular intervals as stated in this policy;
• Must be planned and the supervisor / supervisee must be aware of the objectives;
• Will be conducted 1:1 in a confidential environment;
• The duration of supervision sessions will be a minimum of thirty minutes, usually up to an hour;
• Must not be interrupted unless necessary;
• Supervisions can take different forms such as Group Reflective Supervisions; Welfare Supervisions; Targeted Supervisions or 1:1 Supervision sessions.

Frequency of Supervisions

• Supervision for staff should take place at a frequency of not less than ten per year;
• During any six – month probation period, six supervisions must take place at regular intervals;
• Each session will be for a minimum of thirty minutes. Where a session has been shortened, there must be a brief record on the reason for this and a date / time stated for when the session will resume. This must be as soon as can practically be achieved;
• The frequency of supervision for staff who operate to part time or ‘bank’ contracts must not be less than a total of eight sessions per year. This also applies to Temp to Perm agency staff.

Documenting the Supervision

• The record of Supervision pro form is located within a hyperlink below. The supervisor may complete the record of supervision either electronically or handwritten. Where this is handwritten, the record should be typed up and then signed by both parties. Once the record is finalised, both parties will sign this and it will be scanned and stored in the designated individuals supervision folder within the shared drive;
• All records of supervision will be securely stored and accessible only to the supervisee, supervisor, registered manager and direct line management of the individual;
• All supervisions are logged within the Workforce Development plan which is stored within the shared drive;
• The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that prior to a first supervision session taking place, the Supervision Agreement has been read and signed by both Supervisor and Supervisee. The Supervision Agreement must be stored in the same location as the records of supervisions as they relate to each individual;
• The supervisor must ensure there is a clear and legible record in relation to the session;
• The supervisor is responsible for ensuring confirmations are made at the end of the sessions, including signature and dating from both parties on the record being an accurate account of the session;
• Any amendments should be agreed, signed and dated by both parties. The supervisee is signing to confirm that the notes are an accurate record of the supervision. Where there is a disagreement on the detail of a supervision record, this must be recorded, with reference to the point(s) of disagreement;
• A copy of each record of supervision should be available to the supervisee within seven days of the session taking place. Should the supervisee wish to have a copy of their session, they are responsible for ensuring safe storage and compliance with regard to confidentiality / GDPR;
• The identities of others (e.g. parents, children, colleagues) mentioned in the supervision should be recorded by initials only;
• Where a staff member permanently transfers to another service, the Registered manager is responsible for ensuring the records of supervision as they relate to the individual have been securely passed on to the Registered Manager of the individuals new workplace. The date and place of transfer should be documented on the Workforce Development Plan;
• In the event of a temporary or short-term transfer, the current Registered Manager maintains responsibility for the individuals supervision and must liaise with the other Registered Manager involved and the supervisee to agree an interim plan which ensures supervision sessions continue. A note of the arrangements made must be entered on the Workforce Development plan.  

Responsibilities

The Supervision is responsible for:

• Preparing an Agenda;
• Ensuring a safe enough space for the supervisee to discuss practice issues in their own way
• Helping the supervisee to explore understanding, clarify thinking, and be attentive to feelings and emotions which may surface. Also providing a space in which the supervisee can reflect on practice, review performance and receive guidance;
• Giving clear feedback and setting clear targets for developing practice;
• Sharing experience, information and skills appropriately;
• Challenging, and where appropriate reporting on practice, which they believe to be unethical, incompetent or unsafe;
• Ensuring that where there are areas not covered in a session, it is clearly recorded as to why, and an action noted for the subsequent session to revisit those areas not covered in the next session;
• Monitoring and developing a positive, constructive relationship with the supervisee;
• Ensuring records of supervision sessions are clear and legible;
• Ensuring a copy of the record of a supervision session is available to the supervisee within seven days of the session taking place.

The Supervisee is responsible for:

• Preparing an Agenda;
• Identifying practice issues with which they would benefit from support and guidance and seeking the support and guidance accordingly;
• Monitoring and developing the relationship with my supervisor;
• Developing a task focused awareness to supervision sessions;
• Becoming more aware of organisational expectations;
• Developing the ability to discriminate what feedback is useful;
• Monitoring tendencies to justify, explain and defend;
• Monitoring own responses within the session and being open and receptive to feedback;
• Following up on any Action Points agreed within any set timescales for completion;
• The supervisor and the supervisee are responsible for ensuring compliance with the Supervision Agreement, and this has been signed and dated by both to confirm as ‘read and understood’.