Supervising Child Protection Practice: What Works?: An Evidence Informed Approach

This book presents a model of supervision that is based on both contemporary theory and research, which is strongly contextualized to child and family social work. It draws directly from analysis of in-depth interviews with experienced and post graduate qualified supervisors and supervisees about ‘what works’ in supervision. These findings bring ‘news of difference’ in relation to social work supervision offering hope, inspiration and a contemporary model of supervisory practice.

About the Author

Dr Lynne McPherson is a senior lecturer, social work and social welfare in the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Southern Cross University Australia. Her publication and teaching interests are in the areas of child protection supervision, child, youth and family issues, post graduate learning and harm experienced by children in sport. She is currently involved in a major research project examining the implementation of the Integrative Model of Supervision.

Prior to becoming an academic, Lynne spent more than 25 years as a senior social work manager and practice leader in child protection and the wider child, youth and family sector. She has undertaken roles as a practitioner, manager, training consultant and senior policy advisor. For more than a decade she was senior manager of the State-wide Professional Development and Workforce Strategy Unit for the Department of Human Services, Victoria, Australia. In 1997, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to examine international best practice in child protection. In summary Lynne has considerable professional experience and expertise, significant leadership capability and strong national and international networks in the child protection industry.

Noel MacNamara is a social worker and has worked in the field of child trauma and abuse and neglect for over 30 years. He has worked in statutory and non-statutory settings in the UK and Australia. In 2013 he was recognised for his contribution to the field of child and family welfare by being awarded the Robin Clark Memorial Award for inspirational leadership. For the last seven years Noel has been the National Manager of the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF). The ACF is at the forefront nationally of understanding how neuroscience can be translated into practical applications in the areas of specialist therapeutic intervention for traumatised children and their families, therapeutic foster care, therapeutic kinship care, residential care programs, and professional education initiatives. ACF has a strong reputation for the delivery of effective, innovative and flexible trauma-informed therapeutic services for traumatised children and young people, who present with a complex matrix of needs and challenging behaviours stemming from histories of multiple forms of abuse and neglect. Noel is an author of a number of journal articles and regularly presents at national and international conferences.