The value of professional supervision for practitioners working in challenging circumstances.
Joe Danks – Pulse Arts CIC
Joe is a freelance musician and has 5 years experience bringing music to children and young people in challenging circumstances, most frequently paediatric healthcare settings.
Making music in healthcare environments has been a big part of my life for the last 5 years, and it has been a privilege to bring music to young people experiencing physical hardship and illness. Many of the young people we work with are facing with life altering or limiting conditions either with new diagnoses or having spent a large proportion of their lives in and out of healthcare establishments. At the end of 2018, Pulse Arts realised this work was having a significant impact on the wellbeing of its musicians and decided to build professional supervision into the following year's programme.
I started my professional supervision in August 2019, and have now had 8, hour long, one to one sessions in person and also by Skype and Phone. My supervisor is a professional therapist, trained in person centred and humanistic counselling and works either from home or from a counselling centre in my home city. All registered therapists have to engage in regular professional supervision for themselves so my supervisor was already aware of the kind of support I was looking for when I arrived for my first session. She was also keen to stress that sessions may well vary in subject matter, and her job is to work with the whole person in front of her – not just the professional.
I was incredibly nervous, and I suppose slightly daunted by the prospect of my first session. It seemed strange to me to be entering a therapist’s office for the first time but my supervisor was incredibly welcoming and I soon opened up and shared quite openly the things I had been struggling with. My supervisor has given me countless useful phrases and things to help deal with the stressful time I have been going through and I really think she has helped me continue to deliver high quality practice whilst going through a difficult time personally. She often offers different perspectives on situations, from a neutral viewpoint, which can be so useful. Often the support can be as simple as validating a feeling and acknowledging that something can be difficult – such a simple but crucial part of my supervision. She has also given me some great advice, and pointed out that I am prone to over-working and not taking time for myself!
My sessions have been a safe space for me to 'download' lots of the things I have in my head, many of them work related but often completely unconnected. I think this has kept me in a place where I can give myself to my work in an honest and open way and share music with a genuine sense of positive personal wellbeing. The counselling I have received has been not been prescriptive and has been shaped around my needs, which vary from week to week. I am immensely grateful for the support my supervisor has given me and I will be continuing the sessions as long as I feel they are useful to me. I would encourage anyone who works in challenging circumstances with young people, using so much of their emotional energy with others, to try supervision as a form of personal maintenance. It has made such a difference for my practice, and I am sure it has the potential to do the same for you.
British Association for Counselling (how I found a professional supervisor)