The General Social Care Council recently published details of a survey about supervision in social work. It was not encouraging reading. We are fortunate in social work to have a strong tradition of supervision, unlike many other professional groups. It is very sad if we are not able to make the most of that supervision. Over my career I have seen many, many examples of how good supervision has made an extremely positive contribution to practice and almost as many examples of how poor or non-existent supervision can be so detrimental.

Tony Morrison, highly respected trainer and author who sadly died earlier this year, always argued that practitioners who are not receiving good supervision (or not receiving supervision at all) should do something about it, rather than just accept the risks of undertaking demanding work without the proper level of support. Supervision is too important for us to allow it to be neglected.