Practice supervision: investing in employee wellbeing

With the increasing demand for innovation, flexibility and support in today’s NDIS and community support space, selectability is leading the way with its contemporary approach to service delivery supervision.

selectability’s new practice supervision framework acknowledges that delivering high-quality, best-practice support to more than 2000 consumers across a wide regional Queensland footprint requires a resilient, empowered workforce.

 Practice Supervisor, Suz Bocking said burnout and work-related stress were major contributors to unplanned absences, poor wellbeing, often resulting in low employee satisfaction and a high turnover of frontline workers.

“Our practice supervision framework is designed to assist frontline employees in their daily roles of supporting consumers to achieve their goals while ensuring their own personal safety and ongoing mental wellbeing,” said Suz.

“It’s a working alliance between practice supervisor and front-line employee.

It encourages employees to consider and implement measures to prevent burnout from the challenges encountered in the delivery of support.

At selectability frontline employees make up around 80 per cent of our 800-strong workforce and include support coordinators, recovery coaches, lifestyle support workers, consumer care officers, team leaders, consumer service and support officers, volunteers, and students on placement.

The practice supervisor is not a team leader or a line manager, instead, is employed specifically to provide objective supervision and debrief sessions focused on the support employees provide to our consumers.

The Practice supervision team consists of counsellors, psychologists, and other mental health professionals.

“We are currently holding more than 100 sessions a month and have seen a 25 per cent reduction in employee turnover, which is great for many reasons,” Suz said.

“The program empowers employees to make decisions regarding their own personal safety and mental well-being while ensuring consumers are achieving their unique goals.

“Since its launch, employees have reported feeling more empowered and supported in their roles.”

How does it work?

Employees can choose from two different options depending on their individual needs:

Debriefing

A short-term session is organised following a critical incident where there are potential psychological impacts. The practice supervisor and employee to debrief the situation and will work together to ensure the safety of the employee and to minimise any future reoccurrence of the incident.

Practice Supervision

Can be provided in groups or individually to support the goals of a consumer or group of consumers such as a supported independent living home.  

These sessions focus on the consumer's needs and how best the team around them can support them.

So, it will often include sharing of strategies, education on diagnosis and best practice specific to the consumer.

Investing in our frontline workers not only makes for a more positive work environment but allows for more structured and strong service delivery for our consumers.