[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Inside Social Work Podcast, a podcast that aims to inspire, engage, and connect social workers with other social workers and allied health professionals doing interesting and amazing things across the world. I’m your host, Marie Vakakis. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy today’s podcast episode.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Inside Social Work podcast. This week is part three of the supervision series. I hope you’ve enjoyed the last two parts. I’ve been trying something a little different over the next little while, um, experimenting with some different content on the podcast.

Uh, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback and if you’re really liking this and you’re finding it valuable, I’d love if you [00:01:00] could share it or leave a rating and a review. It’d be really helpful for other social workers or allied health professionals to find the podcast. I’m really trying to create something that adds a lot of value and guidance and support to early career social workers, but also I’m aware that a lot of people who are other allied health professionals also listen to the podcast, and that is really exciting.

A big shout out to all of you listeners. Thank you for supporting the show. We’re at nearly 56,000 downloads, which is just super, super incredible. I’m so grateful for all of you. It is been an absolute pleasure to, uh, to see the interest that the podcast is getting and to see people engage with the material.

So I’m so, I’m so just amazed. I’ve got, um, lost for words to see the podcast growing this way. I hope you enjoyed last, um, the last episode with, uh, Caroline Burrows. I know EMDR is a [00:02:00] topic that comes up a lot and people are really interested. So if you didn’t catch that, you can still listen to this episode.

It’s not linked at all in any way, but that was a really interesting episode a couple of, um, weeks ago. I’m a little bit behind in recording, so I do apologise for the delay and I’ll get straight into this week’s episode. Uh. We did talk in the first, uh, of the three part series of supervision, looking at why, why do we have supervision and what are the benefits?

And then I spoke about in part two, the benefits of group supervision and group consultation and how valuable that is. And today I wanted to talk around. Talk a bit about learning and engagement, and I find this quite interesting. Um, I’m in the process at the moment of doing, uh, an additional supervision course, just like with other parts of my practice and professional development.

Um, supervision is a skillset in itself and every few years I like to do some additional training [00:03:00] and support my learning and growth to be a better supervisor and to put more tools in my tool belt. So that I can bring out the best in those that I work with. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about learning styles and how we engage with content as adult learners in particular.

And what I find quite interesting is how little some of us may know about our learning styles and how this can impact our supervision. And so. Yeah, recently I’ve completed some learning styles, questionnaires myself, and they were a reminder about how I like to, to learn. I’m a very active learner. I, I like to just give things a go.

New experiences. I like to be challenged and I take a lot of risks. Um, I’m happy to just, I’m that person who gets the box of IKEA furniture and just wants to see if I can figure out how to put it together. [00:04:00] So I just like to kind of piece it all together and see how things go. And if I have a supervisor or an educator, a line manager who doesn’t know how to teach or support me through that learning style, I find that I can be really difficult to engage.

Uh, not a difficult person, but I find it really hard to get on board and engage with the material. And so I’ve been thinking about my own supervision and how I show up as a supervisor, but also as a supervisee. And what’s really struck me is we often we do for others what we would like done for us, or we teach how we like to learn.

And that can be amazing if someone happens to also like to learn the way that you like to teach. But it can also be a really big blind spot. Yeah. And what really was a reminder [00:05:00] for me is some people, well, we all have different learning preferences and some people might like to be more passive. Uh, take time to observe, to be conscientious and consider what they’re about to say.

They might want to review things and take time for research. And if I’m teaching them. A very sort of, let’s throw you in the deep end and see what happens. They might find that incredibly overwhelming, and so I can see times where I’ve gotten this wrong as a supervisor, where I’ve given someone what would’ve been the.

Dream perfect learning environment for me. I completely overlooked what they needed and how what they needed. I actually found incredibly difficult to do. Because if I was on the receiving end of that, I would’ve hated it. And this is something that I really, [00:06:00] uh, I struggle with and it’s a dilemma that I’m going to be working on because I also get support, you know, supervision for supervisors.

’cause I, I do really value that position of responsibility that I have, uh, within the individuals and, and groups that I work with. And so I wanted to encourage all to start thinking about how you like to learn and how do you communicate that to your supervisor. So if you’re an early career social worker or if you’re an graduate, or maybe you are seeking supervision for the first time, it can be really helpful.

To think about how do you like to learn and how do you articulate that to your supervisor? Do you like to brainstorm? Do you like to problem solve? Do you want to read things? Do you like to role play to have someone else do a role play and observe? Do you like small discussions or big group discussions?

These are all really important things [00:07:00] to start to understand about yourself and to see how do you like to learn? Because as you’re moving into your career, there is a different dynamic and you’re not, you know, when we do counseling with, with more vulnerable community members, we do have a position of power being the expert in the room, and I can see why it would be really hard for someone in a counseling or consulting space.

Case management to say to their therapist, their social worker, Hey, I mean what you’re doing is not quite working for me. We’d love to empower them to get to that point, but it’s a little bit harder as professionals, especially if it’s a supervisor that’s external and you have chosen them to build on a particular skillset or to work towards your accreditation.

I think it’s really important to understand how you like to learn and to speak to them about that. So some of the, one of the, um, resources that I’ve [00:08:00] used is the COBS Learning Style Inventory, and I found this really interesting for a number of reasons. One is that it breaks your learning style down into a number of different categories.

So there’s an activist who like practical tasks, there are theorists who like to take something away to study. There are reflectors who need lots of breaks and opportunity to reflect and discuss, and then there are pragmatists who like, you know, shortcuts and tips. If you supervise to what is your preference and that doesn’t align with the other person, there’s going to be a clash and it could leave someone feeling left out, left behind in a group setting.

It can be really difficult to navigate. So I encourage you. To have a look at that learning style, that inventory, sorry, and see what do you come up with? What are your personal learning preferences? And if you’re a [00:09:00] supervisee, how do you like to learn in supervision? You know, how can you tell someone that this is how I like to learn, and this is what excites me and energises me.

And as a supervisor. If it’s never occurred to you, it awesome to do this inventory and have a think about, oh, as a supervisor, this is my preference. And then you’ll be able to see ways in which you can then adapt your teaching, your supervision to match the needs of those who you’re working with. So for example, as someone who’s an activist like myself under this learning style inventory, I like new experiences.

I want. Action. I get excited by that. I like to talk a lot in small groups. I get lots of ideas. Um, I like to brainstorm. I can take lots of risks and challenges and I love problem solving. If I was to be given stuff to [00:10:00] read and lots of research to do, and. A solo reflective work, I would be miserable. I would find that excruciatingly boring.

I would be disengaged. It wouldn’t sink in. I would be reading over the same sentence multiple times. I just wouldn’t enjoy it. And. That’s often how a lot of things are taught, which is quite funny, especially even the supervision course I’m doing at the moment. Even though it talks a lot about adult learning preferences, it only teaches till one preference, which is a story for another time.

So I encourage you to have a think, how can you have these conversations? And if you don’t have time to do the inventory and you’ve got a supervision coming up, maybe just have a think, maybe review with that person. Hey, how do you find things are going? Are you. Taking away from this what you need. Would you like some resources to be sent out?

Do you like to have a little bit more time to [00:11:00] digest things? Are you more visual? Does it help you to have practical tools to implement in sessions? Do you like to see someone else role play it for you so you can get ideas? Should we watch a video or a recording of something that you’ve done in the past to see how it goes?

Like. And this is a really rich conversation to have and especially if you find someone stretched. So if someone’s a little anxious about being recorded, that might be a really good place to start maybe working on in a lower, like in a smaller capacity. So it could be maybe they do a snippet of just a voice recording or they do a role play.

’cause we wanna stretch people, but we also want to find a way that fits in with. Individual learning styles and preferences within the overarching restrictions or constraints or service delivery. Uh, guidelines there. So that’s just something I wanted to encourage you all to do is think about how you like to learn and how that shows up in supervision.

As a [00:12:00] supervisee, what can you do to engage better in supervision to get the most out of it? Because this supervision is for you. It’s to prevent your burnout. It’s to reduce the risk of compassion fatigue. It’s to support your growth and your learning and do really great work for the people communities.

That you work for. And as a supervisor, you often do this work because you love it. If you’re anything like me, you get a lot of enjoy and excitement out of seeing people progress through their career to be excited about their field, to be learning new things and to support that journey and that growth in a way that is really rich and rewarding is one of, is one of the best parts of my job.

And so I’m working really hard on continuing to improve my supervision practice, and I encourage you all to start thinking about how you might be able to implement some of these things in your work. [00:13:00] So I’ve got a few things, different activities that I wanted to share with you all that might be helpful depending on where you’re at and your individual.

Preference. So if you are an activist like myself, one of the things you can start to do, you know what activists like to learn by doing, and I’m referencing the KBS learning style inventory here. There are another, a number of other learning style questionnaires and. Uh, various other inventories, but this one is what I’ve been using at the moment.

So for activists, we like to learn by doing, uh, sometimes act first and consider the consequences afterwards. Um, I have built a few wonky IKEA things, but you know, that was okay. Um, and we thrive on the challenge of a new experience and yeah, get bored with implementation. And longer term consolidation. So if you have an activist as your [00:14:00] supervisee, some of the things that could be really helpful are things like brainstorming, problem solving.

This could be in presenting a really tricky case or asking them for insight about a really difficult situation, group discussions, um, puzzles, maybe things that have a bit of a. Like a competitive streak. So even if the competition’s against yourself, so it could be, let’s set this, um, expectation and see if you can do it different or better next time.

Maybe it’s really focusing on a particular skill and having an incentive for, uh, improving practice or being regular or having a continuing education outcome of some kind. That’s one that can be really helpful. And another one is role plays. So getting them to stretch themselves, get outta their comfort zone, and maybe even be a difficult client.

You know, get them to role play, how they would navigate that and see how that [00:15:00] goes. Because that’s, there are some really good activities for how activists like to learn for those who are reflectors. They learn by observing and thinking about what’s happened. Uh, they tend to avoid leaping in and prefer to watch from the sidelines.

They like to just view experiences, sort of, you know, zoom out and kind of see what’s happening. They collect data and take the time to walk, work towards appropriate consolidation. I would be very, uh, careful with this one just to make sure that it’s not. Kind of going into an anxious, avoidant kind of quality.

So where someone is really scared to give something a go and just continues to observe and observe and observe without effort implementing. So if you’re working with someone who’s a little bit more anxious or you’ve noticed that, oh, that might be me, then this is something to also talk about in supervision.

How can you start to. Step out of that [00:16:00] comfort zone, still honoring your learning preference, and then starting to make sure that you find ways to put your skills into practice in a real life way. So if you’re working with a reflector, or you might be a reflector, some of the activities that could be good would be things like models.

So an actual framework or a step-by-step model of, you know, think about, um, first aid. You know, doctor’s A, B, C first, you do. This, then you do this and then you know, you have a structure and, and a kind of model to follow. Uh, statistics can be really valuable. So understanding the why, um, stories and background information are things like quotes and then how to apply theories into practice.

So a really, uh, conscientious kind of thinking intellectual way, uh, tends to be what reflectors really like. If you’re a theorist, uh, theorists tend to like understanding the theory behind something. Um, they might [00:17:00] like ro uh, sorry. They might like models. Want to know about concepts and facts and wanna kind of understand the bigger picture.

And there’s a real strong preference there for analyzing things, synthesising and drawing concepts into systematic and logical approaches. If that’s you or you’re working with someone who’s a theorist, we might need to take it slow and have time. Give them time to think about how learning can be applied in reality.

So these might be case studies, problem solving. And discussions and help someone consolidate that learning. And then the fourth type of learning style is a pragmatist. So these are people who want to be shown. So we’ve got the activists who are like, let me do it reflectors who are like, tell me theorists is convince me, and pragmatists are, show me.

So they like to be able to see how to put the learning into practice in the real world. Um, things like abstract [00:18:00] concepts and, and games. Just don’t really work for them, um, unless they can see why and how to put these ideas into action in their lives. So experiments to try out new ideas and theories can be really helpful here.

So learning activities that would help if you’re a pragmatist could be things like paired discussions, self-analysis questionnaires, um, personality style questionnaires, even maybe a learning style questionnaire. Um, taking time out to reflect, observing activities, getting feedback from others, uh, interviewing and coaching.

And that will help bring out the best in that person. So. And there are a number of different things. I quite like this particular inventory and I encourage you to take some time to think about how do you like to learn and how can you maximise your strengths and your learning preferences in the settings that you work with.

Because I know for me, when I [00:19:00] saw, when I redid the quiz, I had done it, uh, it’s probably been two years since I last, um, looked at this and reflected on my own learning style. And I really, I really noticed that I had started to curate. An environment that really energised me and I would get the most things done and take and absorb the most information when it was in these forums and in these, um, these activities really, I guess, harness what I like to learn when someone would present information.

And this was actually really difficult for me during the lockdowns where a lot of information was online and a lot of things were printout, manual and follow. Written content. Um, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to engage with other other learners. I really struggled with that. And so there are some courses that I’m having to redo, um, because I just don’t feel like I retained the information.

In, in the way that I really wanted to, and as an adult learner, I don’t wanna [00:20:00] just be doing courses, just a ticker box. I want to engage with the content and the material and put that into practice right away with my clients in my business, uh, or in my supervision. So I hope that was helpful. This was the end of this three part series, and if you are interested in learning a bit more about, uh, supervision with me, you can check out, uh, the show notes.

There’ll be a link there to my pra my counseling practice, the Therapy Hub. Where I offer individual supervision as well as, uh, group supervision for school social workers. I find that that’s a particular area that I like to work with. Uh, having a lot of experience working in youth mental health space and being a family therapist.

And in a former, a former career, former life, I was a school counselor wellbeing coordinator. So I really love working within that school setting. And so I offer online group supervision for school social workers. If you’re not a social worker, that’s okay if you’re a [00:21:00] counselor, if you’re a psychologist, if you’re working with, uh, adolescents in a counseling capacity.

You’ll find that group hopefully really helpful. And for those in Australia, I’ve got some upcoming training, which I’m really excited about. I love live face-to-face training. So I have two days in Footscray, uh, coming up in September, I think the ninth and 10th, uh, for my Youth Mental Health First aid course.

And if you haven’t heard the episode with Dr. Claire Kelly right back in season one, we’re in the first year of the podcast, I really encourage you to have a listen to that and she talks about why everybody should do a Mental Health First Aid course. I can’t tell you how often I use these skills and I, I don’t think I’ve ever had to use my physical First Aid qualification at all, but my mental health First Aid.

Skills I use almost daily, and even though I’m a experienced [00:22:00] clinician, the mental health first aid skills are very different to that. It is, it’s, it’s working on a completely different part of the intervention. A kind of continuum where we’re looking at early, immediate, reactive sort of support, not treatment.

And so I highly recommend that if you work with adolescents, uh, even sort of upper primary school age kids, it could be really helpful, uh, sports coaching, uh, youth work, any of those sorts of areas. I really encourage you to check out the Youth Mental Health First Aid course. Uh, and I’m running one online in October.

This is limited to those in Australia only because I do send out the manual and the resources and it’s for an Australian context. And yeah, that’s it for me for another week. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series and I’d really love to hear what you think. I’m. Planning ahead for the next season of the podcast.

Um, I’ve batch recorded a few episodes and I’m really excited. We’ve got some really awesome guests on the show coming up, but I’d love to [00:23:00] hear from you. Send me an email marie@insidesocialwork.com. Uh. Contact me at Instagram at Marie Vecas and tell me what you think. Tell me what you’re finding helpful, what’s been your favorite episodes.

I really wanna make this podcast a really great resource and improve it as best that I can as the show continues and make it a valuable thing for all you listeners. So feel free to get in touch. I’d love to hear from you, and please put a rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening.

I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode. The Inside Social Work Podcast would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we record this podcast today and pay our respects to elders past, present, emerging. Thank you for listening. If you would like to support the podcast, you could leave a rating or a review on iTunes or wherever it is you get your podcast.

And feel free to join the Facebook group. It’d be great to hear from you. Have a lovely day. [00:24:00] Bye.