Supervising in 2024: Who are our Supervisees and How Can We Use a Social Justice, Anti-Racist, Whole-Person Approach to Facilitate their Growth?
Patricia Wilcox, LCSW and Aminah Ali, LMSW
3 CECs
Registration Fee: $75 – 10% discount for UConn SSW Alumni
Free for Current SSW Field Instructors
Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.
Multicultural workforces are the norm in social service and educational agencies. Though such diversity is positive in many ways, it can also create challenges for staff. Differences in culture and language may cause tension among employees, discomfort among groups or strained relations between employees, interns, and supervisors. Managers and supervisors must be aware of their own biases and assumptions and develop the skills to conduct difficult conversations with their supervisees. Together the two can create meaningful organizational change. In addition, our clients’ lives may be highly impacted by racism and inter-generational trauma. Supervisors can facilitate more effective programs by supporting supervisees to bring these issues into the discussions they have with clients.
This webinar focuses on trauma-informed supervision through a social justice and anti-racist lens, an approach to supervision that begins with the personal and extends to the professional. Personal histories, identities, characteristics, and psychological experiences of supervisors, as well as structural and environmental conditions of the organization, are aspects of supervision. This perspective promotes the role of the supervisor as a leader in establishing a culture within their team that is responsive to and inclusive of the cultures and unique experiences of clients and colleagues. Supervisors are encouraged to remain vigilant in their commitment to social justice and an anti-racist approach by leading their teams and organizations in achieving truly inclusive diversity.
Participants will be able to:
- Find how to improve their interactions with supervisees by identifying the positionalities and unique experiences of supervisor and supervisee.
- Appraise and discuss implicit bias and how it impacts the supervisory relationship and work with clients.
- Implement 3 strategies for addressing power differentials and improve trust between supervisor and supervisee.
- Explore dilemmas in supervising the whole person while maintaining agency mandates.
- Develop a plan to increase their team’s ability to have difficult conversations around social justice.
- Discuss with supervisees the applications of racism and inter-generational trauma-informed perspectives and prepare a plan to utilize this knowledge within their practice.