Clinical Supervision Handbook - CAMH Knowledge Exchange ..

APPENDIX 1
Conceptualization of Clinical
Supervision: A Review of the Literature
SOCIAL WORK
Supervision in social work is essentially conceived of as a method to ensure the
organization’s mandate is achieved by enhancing the supervisee’s* ability to provide
effective service. The supervisor is accountable for the job performance of agency
workers (Kadushin, 1976; Kadushin & Harkness, 2002) with administrative, educational
and supportive activities being used to achieve this goal. Supervision scholars in
social work agree on the importance of a positive relationship between supervisor
and supervisee as the context for learning and performance (Barretta-Herman,
1993; Kadushin & Harkness, 2002; Munson, 2002; Shulman, 1993, 2005) while
emphasizing the parallel process in the working relationship between client-worker
and worker-supervisor.
Three interrelated functions of supervision were proposed by Kadushin (1976)
—administrative, educational and supportive—a conceptualization that has continued
to receive support (Bruce & Austin, 2000; Munson, 2002; Shulman, 1993).
Administrative supervision encompasses selecting and orienting workers/clinicians;
assigning cases; and monitoring, reviewing and evaluating work. It serves as a
socializing agent, advocating, and buffering within the organization. Agencies grant
supervisors authority to direct others’ work and they use both formal power such
as rewards, coercion, position in the organization, and informal power derived from
their expert knowledge and relationships with their supervisees.
*The term supervisee is used in this section to maintain consistnecy with the literature.
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