The art of weaving trauma-informed skills into supervision : a transdisciplinary multimodal exploration of the views and experiences of helping professionals working in child and adolescent welfare settings

Abstract

This paper presents the works in progress of my thesis about the use of therapeutic trauma-informed (TI) skills in supervisory practice in child and adolescent welfare settings. Inspired by my experiences as a foster parent, social worker, counsellor and supervisor, the obvious became apparent: being therapeutic in the context of trauma, irrespective of theoretical orientation or discipline features significant emotional labour and common underlying processes in which the body and relationships are central. Literature on TI supervision refers to skills, that mirror those in practice, such as attending to relational components, creating emotional safety and emotional regulation and fostering empowerment. However, a semi-systematic review carried out during this thesis, reveals a gap between the skills referred to in the TI supervision literature and those considered key to TI practice with children in welfare settings. [extract]