Supervision
Why?
Open Dialogue supervision is a critical element for cultivating dialogical practitioners and enhancing collaborative practice. It has always been a core part of the implementation in Western Lapland, and is still considered an essential prerequisite for international implementations.
Supervision serves as a vital space for reflection and gaining insight into complex clinical situations, enabling us to develop our dialogical skills in responding to individuals and their social networks. Most importantly, it offers support to practitioners in the inevitable challenges of our practice, allowing us to explore the impact of the work and its connection to our own histories and relational contexts. For those with foundation level training, it can also be a place of further training and learning as the practice is embedded.
About Open Dialogue Supervision
Here are some key aspects of dialogical supervision:
- Reflexivity: A space to reflect on our own assumptions, biases, and the impact of our interactions, with an emphasis on our meaning making in and about the work.
- Relationality: A focus on the relational world of the work – the space between us, our teams and our clients.
- Intersubjectivity & polyphony: Bringing the same approach to the supervision as to the work – our understanding is co-created through dialogue and shared experiences; and the importance of hearing all the voices, within us and between us. Reflective processes are a core element of supervision.
- Emergence: Embracing the unexpected and allowing for new insights to arise from the interaction.
- Collaboration: dialogical supervision is less hierarchical, and often done with groups and teams, where everyone is an active participant in the process. We aim to “be with” each other rather than “do to”.
- Close to the work: Dialogical supervisions often include video or audio of network meetings (with appropriate consent) or even with network/families present.
Dialogical supervision is not a place to make decisions about the work. Decisions are made, collaboratively, within network meetings. They provide a space for team members to expand their thinking around the situations they encounter and navigate their own responses. This process can support them to respond in the moment to the needs of the network.
Who?
We offer supervision packages for individuals, teams and organisations where people have achieved or are currently on at least Foundation level Open Dialogue training. This can include Open Dialogue trained people who are exploring using dialogical approaches in other aspects of their work.
Team supervision is critical in supporting practice and in building trust among team members, and is recommended as a non-negotiable part of any Open Dialogue implementation.
Practicalities
We offer supervision online or through hosted in-person blocks.
Iseult & Rai jointly hold supervisions, usually separately (alternating) although they work as a pair if funds allow. Group sessions are often 90 minutes or 2 hours, with the frequency to be agreed according to need.
Please contact us if you’re interested in exploring supervision with us, either as an individual/team or as an organisation wishing to contract us for supervision provision.
Implementation Consultation
Between us we have considerable experience in setting up and maintaining Open Dialogue implementations within different contexts, countries and policy structures. We are available to offer this expertise in planning and designing what it might mean to bring Open Dialogue to your organisation. We highly recommend such work for early implementation as it can prevent many future challenges. However, it is also never too late, and we can also support you at further stages. For example when meeting difficulties or as you consider the next phase of your project.
This can be arranged as a package of sessions, stand alone or with CPD workshops/ training/supervision.
Contact us to discuss how we could support you.