Narrative tools in social work supervision: The supervisor life certificate and supervisee’s journey tools — Mohamed Fareez

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This paper discusses the use of two tools in the supervision of social workers: the supervisor life certificate and the supervisee’s journey template. These have been used to help thicken the preferred stories of social workers in a social service organisation in Singapore. Social workers are often expected to acquire a robust repertoire of skills and theories to help them manage and support the people who consult them, and social work supervisors might adopt an ‘expert’ position from which to impart these skills through Socratic questioning and coaching. A narrative perspective acknowledges that social workers who enter the profession already have skills and knowledges that they can access to support their work. The supervisee’s journey template allows for these skills to be documented and thickened through scaffolding questions. The supervisor life certificate is a tool to help social workers reflect on the values that they bring to their supervisory roles.