The BC School Counsellors' Association is starting work on a means of offering intervision (a means of connecting that is related to peer clinical supervision) to its members. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's 2010 publication, Intervision Guidelines, this approach is one that can help support helping professionals in working through the emotion that naturally arises in the kind of work that we do through a peer- (rather than supervisor-) mediated model.
"Intervision is one of the formats that can be used to discuss treatment and care work in a team besides supervision, team meetings and case discussions.
Team meetings generally cover two themes, i.e. management issues (organising/creating conditions for the work of the team) and facilitating the treatment and care work with clients.
Case discussions are focussing on an individual treatment case including the staff involved in this case, e.g. to reach agreement on the treatment plan or to evaluate progress in this individual plan.
Intervision and supervision are forms of work related learning, aiming at improving the (quality of) work of professionals. Supervision and intervision have a number of shared/common characteristics. Both focus on learning, on development of staff. They aim at increasing knowledge, improving skills, increasing self-reflection and insight in personal functioning and on learning how to deal with emotions related to work situations" (p. 5).
Interested in learning more about this new initiative and how you might get involved? Read the attached Guidelines and watch this space!