Reflective Supervision is an empowering professional development approach that managers and other supervisory roles embrace to efficiently support the growth of their direct service staff.  During the course of a supervision encounter the supervisor guides the staff person through the following conversation structure:

Description: The employee shares the facts of the situation the employee wishes to process.

Identification of Feelings & Thoughts: What were the feelings and/or thoughts that surfaced in the employee experienced during the situation.

Evaluation: The employee shares what they felt went well and what could have gone better.

Analysis: Looking back on the situation, the employee shares their sense of the situation.

Conclusion: The employee is then invited to share their perspective on what they might do differently in the future.

Plan: The staff person makes a concrete plan to achieve the conclusion.

Reflective Supervision is a part of Share Collaborative's Healing Focused Care model. The skills needed to achieve the effect and efficiency of Reflective Supervision are found in Motivational Interviewing and includes: empathetic listening, use of the OARS (Open-Ended Questions, Affirmations, and Summaries) and a guiding style. Reflective Supervision is enhanced by the expression of the Spirit of MI (Partnership, Acceptance, Compassion, and Evocation) and aligns with MI’s four process model: Engage, Focus, Evoke, and Plan. Reflective Supervision is a broadly embraced model that supports a Trauma Informed service environment. Embracing Cultural Reverence supports culturally responsive supervisory relationships in increasingly diverse work environments.

The outcome of utilizing reflective supervision includes: staff who are able to achieve increasing degrees of critical thinking aligned with the values and direction of their supervisor and organization, decreases in burn-out and compassion fatigue, as well as increasingly targeted and efficient professional development meetings.