Much of the current understanding of the history of social work supervision is derived from Alfred Kadushin’s research into this aspect. Kadushin (1992) explored the earlier work by Gardiner (1895), Eisenberg (1956) and Burns (1958). Many authors thereafter, such as Miller (1977), Harkness & Poertner (1989) and Ming-Sum Tsui (1997) quote the work of Kadushin.
Becker (1961), Thwing (1893), Burns (1958), Eisenberg (1956) and Miller (1987) as cited in Kadushin(1992) , all refer to supervision of social work as dating back to as early as 1843. The authors are consistent in their findings that the practice of supervision developed over the years according to the historical development of social work as a profession.
Prior to 1920, the process of supervision was different to that which is known today. The process then was concerned with the administrative supervision of the agency by a licensing authority or government board, to which the agency was accountable for the use of public funds and service to their clients. “The term supervision applied to the inspection and review of programmes and institutions rather than to the supervision of individual workers within the programme”
(Kadushin, 1992: 1). The first social work text that used the word supervision in the title, Supervision and Education in Charity by Jeffrey R Brackett in 1904 was concerned with this very aspect.
Following the publication of The Family by the Family Welfare Association of America in 1920, increasing reference has been made to supervision as it is known today, supervision of the individual social worker.
31 According to Tsui (1997), based on the findings of the researchers mentioned above the development of supervision in social work can be broken down into 5 major stages each with its own dominant theme.
2.3.1 Stage 1: Administrative roots of social work supervision (1878 to 1910)
The administrative and educational functions of supervision is said to have its roots as early as 1843, in New York and Boston, where the focus was on the improvement of the living conditions of the poor. “Friendly visitors” were volunteers used to offer help and direct services to families in need. They were recruited, trained and supervised by a few “paid agents” employed by the Charity Organization Societies, (Thwing, 1893; Becker 1961; Harkness & Poertner, 1989 as cited in Tsui, 1997). Visitors received training and administrative instructions through literature, and weekly discussions with the paid agent. In addition, the visitors required supportive supervision, since they were difficult to recruit, easy to lose and were often frustrated and disappointed. These “paid agents” are regarded as the early predecessors of the modern supervisor and were initially directly accountable to a district committee of the charitable agencies. The committees, however, gradually became more policy and administration orientated, allowing more autonomy and thus leaving the decision making on individual cases to the paid agent supervisor who then assumed responsibility for the work of the direct service worker.
2.3.2 Stage 2: Change of context of supervisory training and emergence of a literature base (1911-1945)
In USA, since 1898 social work education programmes were developed, extending from initially a six week training programme to a one year programme that prepared students for field work practice. In 1911 the first course in supervision was offered, the training of social workers shifted from the agency to universities, and supervision became an educational process for learning the required values, knowledge and skills for social work practice. As supervision became an integral part of social work education, it became necessary to teach students more, beyond “how”
and into “why”. This gave rise to the theoretical underpinning of the education programme.
32 Supervision at this point was defined by Virginia Robinson as, “an educational process”.
Between 1920 and 1945, 35 articles on supervision were published. During this period, the professional development of social workers was the dominant purpose of supervision. (Burns, (1958) and Harkness & Poertner, (1989) as cited in Tsui (1997).
Thus the focus in supervision shifted from clients to the social workers. Two views prevailed in terms of explaining this: the majority held the view that the refocus of supervision was a reflection of both Freud’s new psychology and the profession’s growing use of the learning theory for training workers (Burns, 1958). The minority view explains the change as a recurrent adaptation to larger caseloads as a result of economic depression (Eisenberg, 1956).
2.3.3 Stage 3: Influence of practice theory and methods (1930s to 1950s)
The emergence of psychoanalytic theory as the major theory in the helping profession had a profound effect on social work supervision, where the supervisor influenced by this theory saw the supervisory process as a therapeutic process. Until the 1950s, the social casework method had a great impact on the format and structure of social work supervision.
2.3.4 Stage 4: Debate between interminable supervision and autonomous practice (1956 - 1970s)
The value and need for on-going supervision for professionally trained social workers was questioned (Austin, 1942; Bacock, 1953; Schour, 1953 as cited in Tsui, 1997). While, the emergence of the National Association of Social Workers in the USA in 1956 served to reinforce the professionalization of social work, the desire for professional status gave rise to the debate about independence, both of which were regarded as hallmarks of well-developed professions (Waldfogel, 1983). Long term supervision was seen as an insult to their professional status and alternatives to supervision were sought. This resulted in “interminable” supervision being followed by, autonomy through years of practice.
33 2.3.5 Stage 5: Back to administrative function in the age of accountability (1980- 1995)
Since the 1980s, resources and funding became dependent on the efficient and effective delivery of services. The government and community placed demands that the funding be spent in a
“value for money” and “cost effective manner”. Supervision once again began to emphasise the administrative functions of social work.
“The development of social work supervision was greatly influenced by the demands of the external environment of human service organizations and the internal demands of the professionalization process of social work” (Tsui, 1997).
According to Tsui (1997), some social workers feel that supervision is unnecessary and prefer consultation or autonomous practice. However, according to Kadushin (1992) and Munson (1993), the format and structure of social work supervision has remained constant over the past 80 years. Even though social work is more professionalised than ever before, Kadushin (1992) lists 13 reasons related to political accountability, administrative control, the nature of social work, the educational function and the supportive function for supervision to remain and continue into the future.
According to Kadushin (1992), it is the unpredictable, non-routine, non-standardised, highly individualised, unobservable nature of the job of social workers that makes supervision necessary, as long as social work practice is still embedded in an organizational context in its existing form, social work supervision will continue in the foreseeable future.