Speak Out August 2021

Mentoring & Supervision

Supervision and the experienced speech pathologist

2. “Supervision is characterised by accountability and adherence to professional, ethical and workplace standards.” Particularly with early career members or those engaging in a new area of practice, a supervisor provides accountability that may be more directive in nature. For more experienced speech pathologists, this role is often more consistent with peer accountability. In this type of partnership, they establish a trusting relationship with the supervisor. They share observations, insight, and feedback into our performance related to professional standards. They reflect together on how to address where adherence can be increased. They develop a plan and share updates on progress. 3. “Supervision supports a supervisee’s critical reflection on their practice, addressing a supervisee’s work role and personal and professional development needs.” A more experienced speech pathologist may engage their supervisor in reflective practice in much the same way that they engage in peer accountability. Indeed, while many speech pathologists develop the skills to engage in reflective practice on their own over time, they continue to benefit from joint reflection with someone who has a different perspective and can provide accountability for actions that are identified. 4. “Supervision is collaborative and formalised by written agreements, learning goals, and documentation of supervisory activities and progress.” As mentioned, supervision is formalised with an agreement. This agreement helps the partnership to be purposeful by identifying learning goals. Progress on these goals and other relevant discussions and activities should be documented.

Speech Pathology Australia has long recommended that clinicians engage in supervision throughout their career. This advice was reinforced by the updated Professional Standards and Code of Ethics . While the relationship between supervision and early career speech pathologists is clear, the support role it can play for more experienced partnerships that speech pathologists can engage in. Mentoring typically supports clinicians with longer-term professional development goals. Peer support is an informal partnership in which members with a similar level of experience share general advice. However, both of these partnerships may lack accountability of information and may not be appropriate for discussing specific clinical cases. For support with the caseload that a speech pathologist currently sees, supervision is typically the best-suited to provide support with the detail, privacy, and accountability required. The Professional Standards ’ definition of Supervision contains elements that are useful to consider. It describes supervision as: 1. “[A] professional contracted relationship between a practitioner (the supervisee) and an experienced professional (the supervisor) in the supervisee’s area of practice.” Supervision is a professional service. We should enter into an agreement with our supervisor that defines the partnership. A supervisor is someone with experience in our area of practice. Experienced speech pathologists sometimes have difficulty finding someone with more experience in their area. In these cases, they often rely on peers for support. Clinicians in this situation can engage in supervision by putting some structure around peer support and generating an agreement. The template found on SPA’s Clinical Supervision webpage may be helpful. practitioners is not always well understood. There are various types of professional support

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Speak Out | August 2021