Supervision Agreements and Learning Goals
Rebecca Kim
Introduction
A Supervision Agreement is an essential part of engaging PBS Supervision services. Firstly, you need it to receive your BSP Registration, but it also outlines incredibly necessary information about how supervision will run, mutual expectations and responsibilities, and also your identified learning goals. It’s important that you know what kinds of information should be included, and potentially what you might want to ask about if you’re currently in the process of looking for a Supervisor.
What Does a Supervision Agreement Include?
The NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission give us an example Supervision Agreement to us as a basis. It details:
Date of Agreement
Supervisee name
Supervisor name
Review Date of the Agreement (usually 6/12 months)
Frequency of Sessions
Length of Sessions
Brief information about Confidentiality, including recording, storage of records, and limitations
Learning Goals
Standing Agenda Items for you to regularly come back to in session
A few expectations about preparation and rescheduling, and
Both parties’ signatures
It sounds quite a lot of information, but I often end up including more into my own Agreements as I’ve experienced new situations over the years. I’ve come to find that people always have new ways to surprise me.
In addition to the list above, my Agreements also now include:
Practitioner ID numbers
Organisation names (I’ll always check whether the Supervisee is working for a NDIS provider registered for Behaviour Support as this is mandatory to work as a BSP and I don’t want either of us getting in trouble!)
Method/mode of Supervision (e.g. face-to-face, online, hybrid)
Services included and fees, including the necessity of reviewing restrictive practice Behaviour Support Plans for those not yet Proficient level
Time frame for first possible review of the PBS Capability Framework evidence portfolio
Ad hoc support and resources included with ongoing Supervision
Documentation we recommend to download from the website and use/tailor for your Supervision
The Supervisor’s typical style/model of Supervision - e.g. reflective, directive
Payment and invoicing
AI usage in sessions
Limitations of liability
Feedback/Complaints
Making changes to or terminating the Agreement
Now surely, this sounds like a lot! However, this level of detail answers a lot of Supervisee’s questions, and I always prefer to clarify things at the beginning to avoid confusion later on. If you’re seeking to engage in Supervision, please feel free to refer back to this list of prompts to see whether there’s anything you might need to ask.
What Are Supervision Learning Goals?
Almost all of the information in your Supervision Agreement is already decided aside from the basic details such as frequency, duration, mode, etc.
The main section that you have agency over is when it comes to the Learning Goals. This is usually kept within your Supervision Agreement, however after reflecting on this and refreshing myself on the NDIS resources, I’ve recently separated this into a new document to give them their own place to shine. I often find they remain stagnant inside a Supervision Agreement surrounded by all the other information that you don’t regularly need to refer back to.
As such, our new document is the ‘Practitioner Learning Goals and Achievement Record’ which can be downloaded within our free Member’s Site resources. This sister document to the Supervision Agreement allows more opportunity to consider specifics about you as a Supervisee - your current knowledge and skill strengths, your special areas and interests, and the goals you want to achieve with your Supervisor. I often enjoy exploring these things with my Supervisees and usually have these headings within the notes I keep. It helps me keep Supervision more relevant to them and make sessions more meaningful. It also serves as a prompt for when I come across news, resources, or training that they might find interesting.
Your Learning Goals are essentially what you want to get out of Supervision. With my Supervisees, goals often include a whole variety of things since each of us comes from a different place and has their own plans for their practice. In general there’s usually:
Areas where people want to develop a better understanding with PBS processes (e.g. how to write a Functional Behaviour Assessment, different methods of collecting Behavioural Data, etc)
How to sharpen skills to make PBS more effective and person-centered (e.g. working with non-speaking participants during appointments, managing difficult and complex stakeholders, etc)
How to improve generally as a BSP (e.g. make better use of reflective practice and debriefing, stronger caseload and time management skills, how to use quality evaluation tools such as the BSPQEII)
Professional Development Plan and PBS Capability Framework related goals
Leadership and Career goals
I usually recommend tackling 3-4 goals across the life of a typical Supervision Agreement; these are goals that you and your Supervisor are going to work on together as the underlying foundation of your Agreement.
How Will You Achieve Your Goals?
It’s a great step to identify your goals (possibly even up to half the battle), however the other half is making a plan for achievement and keeping accountable.
You need to prepare steps for how you and your Supervisor are going to work to help you reach these goals. This might include you conducting your own research to bring and discuss during sessions, your Supervisor sending you through resources or information, diligently tackling different capabilities within the Framework to review with your Supervisor, reflecting on your emerging leadership opportunities and experiences, and more.
A time frame must also be set; many BSPs will often prioritise participant work and achieving KPIs over working on their own professional development so this will be key. In my experience, it’s an inherent aspect of our field because most of us become BSPs because of our caring and empathetic nature, which can unfortunately be a double-edged sword. Often my more directive moments as a Supervisor usually come when I consistently see people constantly neglecting their own development to instead always put others first. While noble, we’ve all heard that you can’t pour from an empty cup and sometimes people might need a gentle reminder of this.
The last important component to identify is who is responsible for each part of the achievement plan. It always pays to be clear about who is doing what; this equally goes for your Behaviour Support Plans. Always identify who is doing what, or else, in my experience, no one will do it (especially when the only one who loses out is you).
Keeping Track and Scoring Goals
Once you’ve established your Learning Goals, it’s time to implement and monitor! As BSPs, we do this for others, but we must also do it for ourselves. In fact, you can consider this part of your training in effective PBS. If you can do this for yourself, you can absolutely do it for anyone.
This section, which I call Learning Goal Achievement Record, consists of details around how the goal has been achieved, when you and your Supervisor agree it has been completed, and both of your initials. How the goal has been achieved might state that you’ve been trained in the use of the BSPQEII (a common PBSP evaluation tool) and have had a number of evaluations checked for accuracy by your Supervisor, or that you and your Supervisor have discussed across the last 3 months your transition into a leadership role and all the teething issues you might’ve experienced.
Conclusion
Once you’ve signed off on all of the Learning Goals together, congratulations! Take a moment to really feel accomplished as it’s no easy task to commit yourself and carry through on all the promises you’ve made to yourself about improving your practice.
However…don’t feel too complacent now as a new set of Learning Goals will be just around the corner when you review your current Supervision Agreement, waiting to take you to your next level of experience and professionalism as a PBS Practitioner!
