Clinical Supervision Handbook - CAMH Knowledge Exchange ...

Strategies to promote group cohesion
Structure
Clinical Supervision Handbook
• Teach group skills and how they relate to group rationale and goals for group
supervision.
• Clarify purposes of the group (informational, educational, administrative).
• Explain how clients will be discussed, group norms, structure, how feedback will
be given and received, how time is shared, how conflict and competition in the
group will be handled.
Group process
• Encourage open communication about current and immediate issues among
group members, such as group tensions.
• Intervene to ensure that group norms are respected.
• Provide leadership by modelling and identifying facilitative group member
behaviours, such as risk taking, and providing constructive feedback.
• Facilitate focused discussion and feedback.
• Provide supportive and helpful feedback.
• Ensure that feedback about practice is balanced and focused and propose
possible next steps.
• Encourage team members to respond to each other’s concerns in a positive
manner.
• Ask direct questions regarding clinician’s experiences if soliciting ongoing group
feedback is a challenge, such as “sometimes clinicians can feel overly criticized
in group supervision. Are any of you having that experience in this group?”
This targeted feedback may encourage more group level disclosure because it
normalizes clinicians’ concerns.
• Validate different perspectives and approaches and stages of learning.
• Rework formative stages of group process.
• Discuss what is and is not working in the group process.
• Provide time for critical reflection on practice and integrate theory and practice
in each session.
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