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Here at Te Pou o te Whakaaro Nui, we're rapidly adapting to new ways of working in response to Covid-19. We're doing all we can to support and inform our workforces. Find out more by visiting our dedicated Covid-19 portal.

Home / Initiatives / Supervision

Supervision

An effective strategy for developing the workforce and improving services.

More information

Supervision is an important component of professional practice development that helps to ensure ethical, quality service provision to service users and tangata whaiora who access health services. Supervision is key to enabling the mental health and addiction workforce to effectively translate new knowledge into practice. 
 
In the mental health and addiction sector it is an expectation that those working in this setting receive some form of supervision. The knowledge and skills of the mental health and addiction workforce are underpinned by Let’s get real (Ministry of Health, 2008, p. 30) which reiterates the need “to understand and engage in supervision”. 
 
Te Pou offers a range of resources to support sustainable, effective supervision processes: 
  • A suite of professional guides for nurses (2017)
    • Te Tirohanga a te Manu - “A bird’s perspective”: Professional Supervision Guide for Nursing Leaders and Managers.
    • Te Tirohanga a te Manu - “A bird’s perspective”: Professional Supervision Guide for Nursing Supervisors.
    • Te Tirohanga a te Manu - “A bird’s perspective”: Professional Supervision Guide for Nursing Supervisees.
  • Mental Health and Addiction Supervision Toolkit for Kaiwhakahaere/Managers (2015). This resource includes samples of templates.
  • Supervision and primary care nursing (2015) 
  • Aronui. Supervision Guide for Addiction Supervisees, Supervisors and Managers (Dapaanz, 2014) 
  • Position paper: The role of supervision in the mental health and addiction support workforce (2013)
  • Professional supervision training: A pilot evaluation in Northland District Health Board (2010)
  • National guideline for the professional supervision of mental health and addiction nurses (2009)

Resources

Professional supervision guide for nursing leaders and managers

This guide is specifically designed to help nursing leaders and managers understand what professional supervision is and how it relates to nursing. It defines the responsibilities of the organisation and provides guidance on how to implement and evaluate professional supervision from an organisational perspective.

Professional supervision guide for nursing supervisors

This guide is designed to help more experienced mental health and addiction nurses, who are either new to the role of supervisor or are already supervisors, gain a more technical understanding of their roles and responsibilities. This guide should be used to enhance supervision training.

Professional supervision guide for nursing supervisees

This guide is for nurses who are new to supervision, for example, new graduate nurses. It outlines key issues to be aware of when beginning a professional supervision relationship and how to participate in professional supervision. It identifies the different kinds of supervision. This guide may be useful to read before a supervision training module.

Aronui. Supervision guide for addiction practitioners, supervisors and managers

This guide is tailored to dapaanz registered addiction practitioners and those supervising and managing dapaanz registered addiction practitioners.

Position paper: The role of supervision in the mental health and addiction support workforce

This resource looks at how supervision can assist the support workforce to provide effective, safe and quality services.

Supervision guide for mental health and addiction kaiwhakahaere/managers

Supervision concepts are explored and explained for managers who wish to set up a structured supervision approach in their organisation.

Other initiatives

Co-existing problems

Organisations can access resources to improve the way they respond to people experiencing co-existing problems.

Let’s get real

Let’s get real is a framework that supports people working in mental health and addiction to develop the right knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to effectively support people using services.

Service user, consumer and peer workforce

Te Pou is a source of information, resources and research to help the sector develop and grow the peer workforce in a sustainable and measured way.

Talking therapies

Te Pou provides tools and guidance to support organisations to deliver effective talking therapy programmes.