SOCIAL WORK SUPERVISIONSage Sourcebooks for the Human Services Series
Series Editors: Armand Lauffer and Charles Garvin
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SOCIAL WORK SUPERVISION
Contexts and Concepts
Ming-Sum Tsui
Copyright 2005 by Sage Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Tsui, Ming-Sum.
Social work supervision: contexts and concepts / Ming-Sum Tsui.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-1766-7 (cloth)ISBN 0-7619-1767-5 (pbk.)
1. Social workersSupervision of. I. Title.
HV40.54.T78 2005
361.30683dc22
2004005707
04 05 06 07 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquiring Editor: | Arthur T. Pomponio |
Editorial Assistant: | Veronica Novak |
Production Editor: | Sanford Robinson |
Typesetter: | C&M Digitals (P) Ltd. |
Copy Editor: | Fran Anderson |
Indexer: | Karen McKenzie |
Cover Designer: | Glenn Vogel |
Contents
Series Editors Foreword
P rofessor Tsui in this book makes a substantial contribution to the contemporary literature on social work supervision. This literature, if it is to meet the readers legitimate expectations, must have several aspects and all of these are addressed by this author. The first is that an understanding of supervision should be grounded in sound theoretical models. As is true of all of social work today, however, there are competing models such as those drawn from structural and organizational approaches and from practice theories themselves such as those based in one-on-one, group, and team dynamics. It is a sign of the strength of this book that the author can draw upon these various threads and create a sense of the complexity and yet wholeness of the supervisory process.
A second aspect of the social work scene today is a strong appreciation that any form of practice, including supervision, should draw from and contribute to empirical findings. Professor Tsui carefully examines research studies on supervision and relates these studies to theory building and to the practice of supervision. He identifies deficits in the empirical literature and proposes a future research agenda on supervision.
A third aspect is that there are many groups that have a stake in the outcomes of supervision such as the professional community, the agency, the practitioners, and the consumers of services. Tsui recognizes the legitimacy of all of these groups and indicates how the practice of supervision should relate to the needs of each of these groups, even when this may create dilemmas for the supervisor based on the demands placed by these diverse groups.
A fourth aspect is that a useful text on supervision must provide sufficient detail about practice to guide the activities of the supervisor. This book provides this amply through a discussion of the stages of supervision, the various functions a supervisor must fulfill, and the nature of the supervisory relationship.
All of the material in this book relates to several issues that must be strongly emphasized by all social workers. One is the inescapable fact that supervision, as well as all other social work activities, takes place in a world that is highly diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture, social class, and the intersection of these with gender dynamics. These forces are as influential in supervisory practice as in any other practice modality. Tsui, with the perspective that comes from his location in Asia as well as his education in the United States, offers unique insights into the role played by diversity in supervisory activities. Another issue, well understood by this author, is the importance of an understanding of power, especially when this is related to the similarities and differences between supervisors and supervisees.
I trust that you, the reader, will come away from this book with the sense that Professor Tsuis understanding of these topics has substantially enriched you in the ways that you will practice, either as supervisor or as supervisee and enable you, in turn, to make your own input into the field of social work supervision.
Charles Garvin
Preface
S ocial work supervision has been identified as one of the most important factors in determining the job satisfaction levels of social workers and the quality of service to clients. As an indirect, but vital, enabling social work process, it is surprising that supervision has not received as much attention as other components of social work practice, for example, social work research or social work administration. There is a noticeable lack of critical and in-depth discussion on the state of the art and evidence-based practice of social work supervision in the existing empirical research literature (Harkness, 1995; Tsui, 1997b, 2004). A review of the literature found that there is little theory or model building, and very few attempts to place supervisory practice within an organizational setting in a greater cultural context (Tsui & Ho, 1997).