Seven Stages

A supervisory relationship is a professionally intimate space, and so there are seven stages that it is helpful for a supervisor to consider to maximise the likelihood that it is a beneficial relationship for all parties. These are:

1. Preparation, including understanding policy, supervisor strengths and biases, organisational context
   
2. Assessment, such as supervisee understanding of supervision, past experiences, developmental stage, learning style and needs
   
3. Contracting,  ensuring both parties have shared expectations and understanding around responsibilities, behaviours, and limitations of privacy etc.
4. Goal Setting, integrating strategic goals from annual review with ad hoc session by session goals, as well as incorporating organisational and client as well as supervisee needs into goal setting.
5. Delivery, examples of how to structure the session and types of supervisor tools that can be used
6. Review, to ensure that the relationship continues to be of maximum effectiveness,
7. Closure, reviewing not only learnings as a clinician, but also strengths and areas for growth as a supervisee.

Next - the 2 phases of a supervision conversation...