Supervision conversations about social justice and social work practice

Abstract

Summary

In today’s environment dominated by managerialism and fiscal restraint, actualizing the principle of social justice has become a daunting task for social workers. Supervision has been identified as a promising site for enacting social justice, but evidence is lacking that supervision conversations support socially just practice. A concurrent mixed model nested research design was used to explore the needs of social workers for supervision conversations about social justice and practice. A mixed method web-survey on supervision was completed by 636 social workers from a broad spectrum of social work practice settings and geographical locations in Ontario, Canada. Quantitative data and written responses from open-ended questions are presented as an integrated narrative.

Findings

The results demonstrate that social worker participants shared a need for supervisors to promote and provide space for conversations about multiple aspects of social justice and practice. This need for a social justice focus had not been currently or recently experienced by a significant number of participants who worked in a variety of settings.

Applications

In response to the findings and their inferences, implications for supervision knowledge, practice and policy development are provided that could help social workers better actualize social justice in their day-to-day practice.