How feedback will be given (by both the supervisor and student)

  • This was the conversation that students said they most appreciated and made the biggest difference to their experience of placement.
  • Hearing feedback about your performance, especially when you are first starting out, is a daunting experience and can seriously influence (both positively and negatively) a student’s professional development as well as their relationship with their supervisor.
  • Students shared with us that having a conversation about the purpose and importance of feedback, in addition to how the feedback would be delivered, was instrumental in helping them to feel safe and therefore open to hearing and taking on board the feedback from their supervisors. Students indicated that it also meant that they did not feel defensive, targeted, embarrassed or think their supervisor ‘didn’t like’ them.
  • What a great example of how a simple conversation can have such significant and ongoing benefits!
  • So what needs to be covered?
    - Let you student know that part of your role is to help them to grow and learn and in order to do that you will need to provide them with feedback on a regular basis. Reassure them that you do this with every student/or employee you supervise, so they are not ‘special’ in any way and that you also receive and invite regular feedback from your supervisor.
    - Let them know that feedback is really important to their development as a social worker and without it they won’t have the opportunity to learn what they are doing well and/or the areas that they need to work on. Reinforce that receiving feedback does not mean that they are a ‘bad’ worker or that they have done the wrong thing.
    - Give them an example of what typical ‘feedback’ would look like.  For example explain to them that after they complete work with a client that you will sit down together and talk about what worked well and what didn’t work so well and what they might have done differently if they had their time again. You might say, “I really liked how you established a good rapport with that client, but I noticed that you did most of the talking and didn’t give them much of a chance to say anything. Do you think you might have been a bit nervous”?  This takes the ‘mystery’ and for some people, the fear out of receiving feedback.
    - Feedback is not a one way street. The student will also need to provide feedback to you as a supervisor to make sure things are on track and that the relationship is working well. Again you should give them an example of what this would look like to reduce any concerns they might have about doing this. An example you can provide to your student could be, “if you are feeling like you are not being challenged enough or you would like more client contact you can come and let me know and perhaps have some examples of what you would like to do instead”.