Geriatric Mental Health Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

Chapter 6 Supervision and Facilitated Refl ective Practice 111
in service development and delivery, as has been suggested by Hawkins and
Shohet (2006). The other two processes are the normative, which deals
with the maintenance of appropriate standards of practice, and the formative,
which educates the practitioner.
The authors are of the view that embedding cofacilitated group and/
or team supervision throughout the processes of planning, disseminating,
responding, recovering, and returning to the nonemergency state offers
the opportunity to review practice in the here and now as well as reviewing
experience by “returning to the experience” (Boud, Keogh, & Walker,
1985, p. 12). There also is an opportunity for addressing practice, including
practitioners’ own feelings and attitudes, thus leading to the possibility
of transforming practice through a “commitment to action” (Boud, et al.,
p. 12).
Supervision can not only identify what is available for the future
through looking at the past, but it can also be used to conduct a review of
each stage of the process in the left-hand column of Figure 6.1 in order
to achieve best practice and learn from each experience. The supervisory
process also provides an effective form of containment for the facilitators,
which they in turn pass on so that the practitioner group is also contained.
The parallel, or mirroring, in the supervision processes (Clarke & Rowan,
2009; Hawkins & Shohet, 2006; Hughes & Pengelly, 1997)—in which the
processes of service provision are enacted in the here-and-now processes
of supervision as well as in individual or group behavior—is a valuable resource
on which to explore and elucidate service provision. An example is
the exploration of the functioning of an interprofessional team and, thus,
the development of these services .
The power of disasters and emergencies can be overwhelming, a reaction
that can be manifest in team or group behavior. To avoid this, facilitators
also are supported by their own practice supervision, which
provides them with a containing environment (Agass, 2000). In supervision,
they too can explore their practice and transfer their learning into
their facilitative roles, rather than becoming overwhelmed and responding
inappropriately. Facilitated reflective practice sessions allow for the
normative, formative, and restorative processes (Proctor, 1986, 2000) that
structured facilitated reflection offers. It allows for “mutual supervisionin-action”
(Sully, Wandrag, & Riddell, 2008, p. 135).
Within this context, the supervision of reflective practice facilitators
acts not only to monitor and develop their practice but also to provide a
means of processing their perceptions and understanding of the group
process. It also allows for safety in practice by addressing the possibility of