Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Reflective Supervision Training

Overview: Reflective supervision is a technique designed to strengthen the working relationship between the supervisor and the trainee. This study examined supervisor working alliance before and after supervisors completed a training in reflective supervision. Both supervisors and supervisees perceived that the training improved the working alliance.Proposal text: Introduction
Clinical supervision during fieldwork is a key component of the professional development in social work and counseling master’s programs (ACA, 2014; NASW, 2021). Reflective supervision is a technique designed to prepare supervisors to provide high quality supervision (Bennett et al., 2012; Davys et al., 2017; Herbert et al., 2014; Susman-Stillman et al., 2020). In this study, supervisors participated in six online modules based on the reflective supervision framework enhanced by discussion and assignments. Participants received six hours of continuing education (CEUs). This study aimed to answer two questions: Does Reflective Supervision training result in improved Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (SWAI) scores for supervisors and for trainees? What supervisor and trainee characteristics are related to SWAI scores?
Method
This research study used pretest-posttest design. Trainees were MSW and MS in Counseling students in a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Behavioral Health Workforce, Education, and Training (BHWET) grant. Forty-three trainees participated in the study from either the MSW (n=22) or MS in Counseling (n=21) program. Thirty-six supervisors participated with some working with more than one trainee. Data were collected over a three-year period.
The Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (SWAI) includes both a Supervisor and a Trainee Form (Efstation et al., 1990). Items are on a 7-point Likert scale (1=Almost Never to 7=Almost Always). The scales and subscales demonstrate good internal consistency reliability. All data were collected via Qualtrics survey software. Data were imported into SPSS version 27 for analysis. Descriptive statistics were examined. Paired samples t-tests were used to examine the pre- and post-change in SWAI scores for both supervisors and trainees. Additional bivariate analyses were completed to examine the relationship between demographic statistics and SWAI at pre- and post-test. For multivariate analysis, we used a repeated measures MANOVA of SWAI – Trainee with number of years as a supervisor and SWAI – Supervisor as predictor variables.
Results
Paired samples t-tests indicated that both trainees’ SWAI scores (t = -3.20, df = 40, p = .003). and supervisors’ SWAI scores (t = -4.456, df = 32, p < .001) improved from pretest to posttest. The bivariate relationship between number of years as a supervisor and SWAI –Trainee posttest was significant with trainees having a better working alliance with supervisors with less experience (r = -.33, p = .032). The repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated significant growth in trainee SWAI scores, but the effect size was small (F = 6.12, df = 1, p = .018, partial ɳ2 = .136).
Discussion
Supervisors had a positive response to the training. Both supervisors and trainees perceived improvement in SWAI. However, trainees had a better working alliance with supervisors who had less experience with supervision. This finding supports a study by Stevens et al. (1998), which found that experience alone is not sufficient to enhance a supervisor's development. Results demonstrate that supervisor training can have a beneficial impact on the experience of social work and counseling students. Both fields should continue to encourage continuing education and formal training programs for supervisors.