Guides For Working With A Coach Or Supervisor
(adapted from
Vital Kit in
‘Vital Practice’ 2004 Sheila Ryan publ. Sea Change)
Making And Maintaining Working Relationships
Contracting
Before we practice or do supervision, mentoring or indeed take part in any helping relationship we need to make the time and space for it. Sounds obvious except we are often so ‘time poor’ we get into trouble just through not being really present.
So, clarifying intention and checking out expectations is helpful. This is what contracting is. While some elements are fixed others are moving moment to moment.
Some things are written down, like appointment times, fees and availability, making a ‘hard’ contract. Other elements change moment to moment. These ‘soft’ aspects of the relationship are continually changing and developing. Taking the time to check in about what is happening moment to moment keeps us alongside each other.
Five point contracting
Guides to making and maintaining working relationship
Making a fitting space and time to focus on the work. This includes ground rules, frequency, duration, availability, cancellations and fees.
Getting clear about our intentions and expectations at the beginning and checking in about moment to moment developments.
Being clear about accountability including when things go wrong. Who else needs to know what is happening here?
Making time in session to reflect on the working relationship and re-contracting on considering what is working and what isn't. Making and maintaining a working alliance.
Attending to working relationship, whatever the task in hand, means we are more likely to do what we want to do with ease.
Guides For Working Over The Phone And Email
The suggestion is that phone and email work well together rather than as alternatives to each other. I have come to appreciate the strengths of working within the parameters of the letter and phone line.
Five point contracting for email and phone supervision
Making a fitting space and time to focus on the work
This includes ground rules, frequency, duration, availability, ‘out of hours’ and partnership or locum arrangements, cancellations and fees. Writing the ‘hard’ contract.
Who is professionally, legally and ethically responsible for the supervisees' practice when the client is not seen by the supervisor?
A ‘consultancy’ contract for supervision conducted entirely by phone and email may be the most appropriate. This means the supervisee consults the supervisor but does not make them responsible for the practice. The supervisor is of course still ethically responsible to the supervisee for the supervision given. The supervisee may still make a professional agreement with the supervisor, the professional body and their school, to work within the parameters of the supervision.
Files sent by email are not secure. Check that full names and any identifying details of all parties are not sent. Full detail case notes can be sent by post after all.
What is paid for and how? Does the fee for a booked phone session include reasonable preparation or is this to be accounted for separately? What is reasonable preparation?
What is to be kept on record and how? (Email correspondence generally forms a part of the supervision record.) How are telephone sessions recorded? Do you use a supervision record / a‘case top sheet’or both?
What additional local support does the Supervisee have - for locum, ‘acute’ cover, peer support?
Getting clear about our intentions and expectations in being in the relationship
What are realistic expectations for support and feedback in a relationship conducted entirely by phone and email? Since neither the client or supervisee meet with the supervisor and all case materials are read by the supervisor without the supervisee present, the Supervisee needs to be able to practice somewhat independently. This is not a useful form of supervision for those beginners in practice who require a lot of hands on support.
There is plenty of room for fantasy in a relationship conducted entirely by email and phone so that attention to case notes and asking questions to keep the relationship grounded in a working alliance may characterise this form of supervision more than one in which all participants are present in the room.
What is appropriate to do by email and what by phone? Email is great for sending case notes and summaries. Phone is generally better for giving sensitive and tentative feedback.
I am much more challenging, albeit tentatively, in my questioning on the phone than I am with the supervisee present. I need to know that the supervisee can support her action as I can't directly observe what is happening. I find that these supervisees become competent very quickly both in reflective writing and in cultivating their own supervisory voices. They have to. They tend to be less dependent upon the supervisor and are prepared to take difficult decisions sooner than some other student practitioners. They also tend to express a need at times for me to‘take the decision for them’from reading case notes alone. This is unsafe practice generally since I have no direct observation of the client in question. A phone call in which we remember what they do know and re-vision the way ahead together will usually resolve the feeling of helplessness and a need to have it done for them.
I like email/phone supervision since it gives me no choice but to supervise. I am not so tempted to move in on their practice and do it my way.
Being clear about commitment, boundaries and flexibility
Commitment - The relationship is no less important for being conducted by phone and email. The phone appointment in the diary is as firm as any other client or supervisee appointment.
Phone and email supervision is a lifeline to people living in places isolated from other practitioners.
Boundaries and Flexibility - Is there sufficient time to prepare for the session between sending/ receiving case material by email and the telephone supervision? Emails can be sent at anytime. This can mean that expected turnaround times get shorter than we can manage. How often are we both going to check the mail box?
Acknowledging receipt of emails and giving a time by which a reply can be expected is one way to keep the pressure down.
Some of the things people say about conducting phone consultations:
“I find that only having the voice to listen to focuses us on the task wonderfully and we get a lot of work done in the hour.”
“I like that I can follow the sun around the house when taking the phone call rather than needing to stay in the study.”
“I‘wake up’from a phone call, barely able to remember where I am. I have been away in the Rocky mountains or out in a desert practice with my supervisee.”
Being clear about accountability including when things go wrong
Who are we each accountable to for our work together?
Who needs to see records of the supervision?
Where can we each go to get independent supervision of issues arising in the relationship?
Making time to reflect on the working relationship and re-contracting where necessary
Making regular time in the phone session to review the work together and perhaps writing a reflective summary of the process in preparation for each session, encourages an open and learning attitude towards staying with the relationship through good and difficult times.
