Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a novel online video-based approach to supervision for statutory caseworkers. Caseworkers recorded a video of their meetings with their clients and sent the video to their supervisor. The supervisor selected clips in the video. They held an online meeting where they reviewed the clips, and the supervisor gave feedback and they reflected together. The caseworker then used what they had learnt in their future practice. The caseworker then recorded a new meeting, and the supervision cycle restarted. Design/methodology/approach In total, 11 statutory caseworkers from three municipalities in the Copenhagen area participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews. The interviews focused on the professional learning and challenges caseworkers faced in relation to participating in the supervision process. Findings The caseworkers reported that they used the method to assess their own practice in a more realistic way as the use of video gave a more accurate image than merely recalling what had occurred. They reflected about and developed their relationship with clients, their conversational style and use of communication techniques, skills in relation to running meetings, and skills in relation to eliciting the young person’s perspective. The caseworkers were anxious when they received their first feedback from supervisors, but this diminished. The focus on supporting clients in their personal development challenged caseworkers who identified as having an administrative rather than interventional role. Some found the online meeting technology difficult to master. Originality/value This study presents and explores the use of a novel approach to statutory casework supervision.

No abstract

Statutory meetings are at the core of social work practice, yet there is no quantitatively tested common set of criteria for assessing statutory social workers’ communication skills with young people. Reliably measuring such skills is important for the training and supervision of social workers as well for drawing conclusions about whether such skills impact service users’ outcomes. To fill this gap, we developed a new measure, the My Social Work Partner (MRP in Danish abbreviation) scales, which measure eleven dimensions of statutory communication. We tested the inter-coder reliability and intra-coder reliability of codings on the MRP scales using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) in a random sample of thirty videotapes of statutory meetings. Five professional social workers participated in the inter-coder reliability test; three of them coded the same films again after a three- to five-month interval for the intra-coder reliability test. ICC estimates of inter-coder reliability ranged from good to excellent. Intra-coder reliability estimates ranged from fair to excellent. Overall, the results are promising and support the use of the MRP scales in social work practice with young persons, education and research. Future research will focus on how to improve the intra-coder reliability of the scales, in particular the Dialogue structure scale.

No abstract