The death of reflective supervision? An exploration of the role of reflection within supervision in a Local Authority Youth Offending Service

Reflection within supervision has been identified as key to effective social work practice (Munro, 2011). However, despite the tradition of supervision being strongly embedded in youth justice practice, other imperatives, such as audit monitoring and the focus on inspection readiness, have impacted on the content of supervision and the degree of reflection which occurs. This article reports research that examined the experience of practitioners within a Local Authority Youth Offending Service, exploring the content and level of reflection within their supervision. The research found that whilst supervision is well embedded within the organisation, the content of supervision for practitioners largely focuses on the management function (Morrison, 2005). Whilst many participants thought that their supervision involved some reflection on further analysis, using Ruch’s (2005) levels of reflection model, much of the perceived reflection occurred at the ‘technical’ and ‘practical’ level rather than the ‘process’ or ‘critical’ level. The article explores the implications of the findings and the response of the author’s employing organisation to this research