Golden opportunities for resolving students’ emotional disturbance in learning social work values: A 3Ps approach in f ieldwork practicum

Abstract

The term golden opportunities to discuss with supervisees about social work values refers to the episodes of struggles and conflicts encountered by students in fieldwork. They are so-called golden opportunities to discuss social work values with students. Limited attention has been paid as to how to seize these golden opportunities. This study explores the causes of emotional disturbance and the methods applied by supervisors to discuss social work values with their students. In total, 22 Hong Kong students in Higher Diploma Social Work programmes at three higher education institutes were interviewed. Themes identified include ambivalent feelings, methods and expectations of students. An emotionally interactive approach which consists of 3Ps (‘perceived safe and trusting supervisory relationship’, ‘process of supportive supervision’ and ‘positive and accepting attitudes of supervisors’) is proposed.

Keywords

Approach emotion fieldwork education social work value supervision

Introduction

The process of social work education is viewed as a professional socialization process (Wheeler, 2017). It involves how social work students develop their professional selves and become aware of their role as a future social worker (Barretti, 2004). Many studies reveal that the professional socialization process and the development of professional identity can be best achieved in fieldwork education (Brookfield, 2012). Students are exposed to real job challenges, dilemmas and real cases. All these require students to question, explore and think more deeply (Bramming, 2007). They begin to realize that many issues are not just black and white. More importantly, the ambivalent nature of social work intervention cannot be clearly explained through classroom teaching. Therefore, in the journey towards establishing the professional self, social work students have to reflect deeply on their thoughts and feelings in a real practice setting (Bruno and Aversana, 2018). Fieldwork education then becomes an important component of social work education (Crisp and Hosken, 2016).

Fieldwork education is an integral part of social work education in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, officially known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, is in the southern part of the People’s Republic of China. It was a British colony and it returned to China in 1997 under the Chinese constitutional principle of ‘one country, two systems’. Hong Kong is a highly populated city that is famous for its mountainous landscape. Its culture is characterized as being a mix of both eastern and western cultures. The practice of social studies courses in universities was started by the University of Hong Kong in 1950 (She, 1978). Social work fieldwork placement is provided by non-governmental social work organizations and the Social Welfare Department. They support both concurrent and block placements throughout the year. According to the standards issued by the Social Workers Registration Board (2014), the requirements of a sub-degree and degree programmes consist of a minimum of 700 and 800 hours of fieldwork, respectively. Besides local placement, non-local fieldwork is another option for students. Supervision time offered to the student varies from 1.5 to 2 hours per week depending on the number of fieldwork sessions per week. Students’ preferences of the nature of service and fieldwork site are considered when they are matched for placement. Fieldwork is a mandatory requirement for registration and acquiring a social work licence. The requirements for fieldwork supervisors should be official registration as social workers plus at least 5 years of working experience in social work after graduation from social work studies.

The experiences of Hong Kong Chinese social work students during fieldwork practice have been explored in a few local studies. Tsang (2013) explores the experience of social work students in fieldwork and discovers that the discrepancy between students’ expectations in fieldwork and actual events come as a surprise. Another study by Ngai and Cheung (2009) discovered that social work students experience emotional exhaustion when they struggle to integrate the realities of practice and idealistic expectations. The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between emotional exhaustion and idealism among social work students. Chan (2017) expresses that most fieldwork agencies in Hong Kong do not provide adequate opportunities for students to develop critical reflection. In summary, all these studies find that social work students have idealistic expectations of social work practice. When doing fieldwork practicum, the students’ major task is to meet the requirements of the organizations under which they are working. At the same time, they tend to follow the guidance of supervisors and lack space for reflection. However, the students’ hearts are full of mixed feelings and they even feel disappointed or tired due to the gap between ideals and reality.

Currently, limited attention has been paid to exploring how fieldwork students learn social work values and develop their professional selves during fieldwork practice. In addition, the training offered to fieldwork supervisors on how to teach social work values is limited. In fact, similar to international societies, fieldwork supervision in Hong Kong often places heavy emphasis on theories and practices by using a competency-based approach (Lit and Shek, 2007). Given the limited number of local studies on the topic of teaching social work values in fieldwork, it is essential to fill the research gap and to inform future supervisory practice. This study is designed to answer the following research questions:

Research Question 1: What are the major events that take place during fieldwork practicums that cause the students to reflect on social work values?

Research Question 2: How do social work supervisors react to these events encountered by the students and teach social work values during fieldwork practicums?

Research Question 3: How do the students learn social work values from their supervisors?

Research Question 4: What do students expect from their supervisors?

The research context is Hong Kong, and in total, three higher education institutions were invited to participate in this study. Because the sub-degree social work curriculum design focuses on practical knowledge teaching, students expect supervisors to guide them to reflect on experiences during the fieldwork. The research objective is to explore how the fieldwork supervisors facilitate learning and reflection on social work values in social work students during the fieldwork placements.

Literature review

Importance of learning social work values during fieldwork placements

According to Banks (2012), social work values refer to the beliefs that are viewed as valuable and worthy in a social work context. These values are about the desirable traits or qualities of a professional social worker or the general principles that guide professional actions. Students often encounter the need to reflect on social work values such as social justice and individual care during fieldwork practice (Lynn, 1999). When this happens, the roles and functions of fieldwork supervisors in fieldwork education become extremely important. During supervision sessions, supervisors perform multiple tasks, such as discussing social work values and professional attitudes with students (Thompson, 2006), monitoring the progress of students in fieldwork tasks and duties (Davys and Beddoe, 2000), teaching social work intervention theories and models and facilitating the integration of theory into practice (Cleak and Wilson, 2007) and teaching social work values (Wiles, 2013).

With respect to effective supervision, students generally express that they prefer to have sufficient time to discuss taboo issues (Knight, 2001). In addition, they generally have anxiety about their lack of experience, knowledge and skills in handling clients with backgrounds totally different from their own (Gelman, 2004). Fieldwork placement not only offers students opportunities to try and put into practice what they have learnt, it also opens up opportunities for them to feel the struggles and conflicts of helping others. Many times, these struggles and conflicts are related to social work values. Since fieldwork education is an important platform for students to develop their professional values (Barretti, 2004), these episodes of struggles and conflicts become golden opportunities to discuss social work values with students. This idea is supported by a study conducted by Lam et al. (2005). The findings of this study confirm that if students experience disturbing events in their fieldwork, it becomes an important moment to practise reflection. Fieldwork supervisors are advised to be sensitive when dealing with these situations and that they should be aware of these opportunities. They are sensitive to these important opportunities and facilitate students in the examination of their own feelings, motives and reactions, as well as the impact of these factors on their discovery of self and their social work beliefs.

Knowledge needed by a supervisor

As indicated in the supervision-knowledge map proposed by O’Donoghue and Tsui (2012), knowledge that is required by supervisors includes professional knowledge, experiential wisdom and sensitivity to their personal feelings and their attitude towards the supervisee. First, professional knowledge includes knowledge about supervision functions, content, process and the supervisory relationship. Throughout history, various supervision models inform supervisory practices. Examples include the developmental approach of supervision (Stoltenberg and Delworth, 1987), the functional model of supervision (Kadushin and Harkness, 2014), the interactional supervision model (Shulman, 2010), the clinical model of supervision (Munson, 1993) and the culturally sensitive model of supervision (Tsui and Ho, 1998). Second, the experiential wisdom of the supervisors includes practical wisdom and humanistic values, which serve as a basis for practising as a supervisor (Cheung, 2015). This wisdom is highly relevant to the contextual situation and to personal experience (Chu and Tsui, 2008). Third, sensitivity is a kind of awareness of personal feelings and attitude towards the supervisee (O’Donoghue and Tsui, 2012). In particular, supervisees may become resistant to and avoidant of the supervisors if the latter are not sensitive enough to their needs and emotions (Hawkins and Shohet, 2012). The core elements of genuineness and empathy are essential in fostering the supervisory relationship (Watkins and Scaturo, 2013). In addition, Brookfield (2005) argues that supervisors need to respect the individual differences in learning styles and supervision expectations. In addition, supervisees have the right to know the expectations, standards and criteria for evaluation (Barnett, 2011).

Competency-based supervision model in fieldwork

The competency-based supervision model is currently widely adopted in clinical supervision and fieldwork supervision (Poulin et al., 2018). Within the model, the relationship between supervisor and supervisee is collaborative in nature (Wilson and Kelly, 2010). The power of supervision is embedded in the relationship because the assessment and monitoring of competence and performance are frequently adopted during supervision (Falender and Shafranske, 2017). The goal of supervision is to enhance students’ awareness of the kind of knowledge and skills they already possess or need to acquire. The competency-based approach is commonly used to measure student performance in fieldwork (McNamara, 2013). The assessment focuses on the specific knowledge and skills that students must acquire when learning social work and are expected to achieve during the placement. Lit and Shek (2007) point out that the competency-based model is also widely adopted in fieldwork supervision in Hong Kong. The model emphasizes the core skills needed for direct social work practice and supervisors need to help students acquire social work competencies.

The interactive model in supervision

The interactive model developed by Shulman (2010) is more widely used when supervising social workers rather when supervising fieldwork students. This model attempts to encourage the formation of a more positive and interactive supervisory relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee (Shulman, 2010). The interactive supervision process is also a process of relationship building and it is particularly important for the support of the growth of supervisees. Moreover, an interactive communication and dialogue between the supervisor and the supervisee will certainly help supervisors to understand the needs of their supervisees better. Therefore, interactive supervision is not a one-way process where a supervisor teaches the supervisee, but rather is understood as an interactional two-way process between the supervisor and the supervisee. This dynamic nature of supervision further suggests that both supervisor and supervisee play a role in relationship building.

In summary, the literature review forms the basis for understanding the knowledge required by supervisors and the established approaches that can be used in fieldwork supervision. Although supervisors are required to act as performance assessors (Bernard and Goodyear, 2004), they still need to carefully exercise the power inherent in their position (Tsui, 2005). Supervisors have to make use of their knowledge, competence, power and their relationship with the supervisee to facilitate learning and positive change (Bogo, 2006). In addition, the supervisor facilitates students’ reflection on their fieldwork experiences and the students have to recall the process of the events and their inside emotions and thoughts (Sicora, 2019). The reflective process is important for the students to find meanings and connections for their future social work professional life. Guidance given by supervisors during this reflective process is needed for students to experience with different methods that enable a fruitful reflection (Sicora, 2017). This study will examine a supervision framework that can be used for fieldwork supervision.

Methods

In-depth interviews were used in this study to ensure a comprehensive range of viewpoints. Ideas were collected from the social work students. This study used in-depth interviews to explore the life-world of an individual participant (Iversen et al., 2015). In the in-depth interviews, the informants were considered to be the expert on the research topic and they shared information about their personal thoughts and feelings. During the process of conducting these interviews, the atmosphere was relaxed and encouraging. This enabled the participants to share deeper insights on the research topic (Milena et al., 2008). Therefore, the technique of qualitative in-depth interviews was adopted to investigate the feelings and experiences of those social work students.

After ethical approval was obtained from a community college in Hong Kong, the interviews were conducted with 22 Chinese social work students (10 male and 12 female) who were enrolled in the Higher Diploma in Social Work (HDSW) programme. This programme was chosen because it made the graduates eligible for registration as registered social workers in Hong Kong, students needed to engage in over 700 hours of fieldwork placement and they could choose to work as registered social workers or advance their study to the Bachelor of Social Work degree programme after graduation. Professional values, knowledge and skills in social work are highly emphasized in HDSW training. This is to equip students to become committed and competent social workers. Table 1 provides the profiles of the participants. They come from three higher education institutes in Hong Kong. The selection criteria were as follows:

Students who had already finished their first year of social work training;

Students who had completed at least one social work placement.

The age range of the participants was from 18 to 25. Two of them had completed one placement, and 20 of them had completed two placements.

Table 1.

Profile of the participants.

Anonymous name	Age	Sex	Programme name	Institution	Number of placements completed
Andrew	18–25	Male	HDSW	A	2
Bella	18–25	Female	HDSW	A	2
Candy	26–30	Female	HDSW	A	1
Daisy	26–30	Female	HDSW	A	2
Emma	18–25	Female	HDSW	A	2
Fanny	18–25	Female	HDSW	A	2
George	18–25	Male	HDSW	A	2
Heidi	18–25	Female	HDSW	A	1
Ivy	18–25	Female	HDSW	B	2
Jenny	26–30	Female	HDSW	B	2
King	18–25	Male	HDSW	B	2
Leo	26–30	Male	HDSW	B	2
Mark	18–25	Male	HDSW	B	2
Nick	26–30	Male	HDSW	A	2
Olivia	18–25	Female	HDSW	A	2
Peter	26–30	Male	HDSW	A	2
Queen	26–30	Female	HDSW	A	2
Roy	18–25	Male	HDSW	C	2
Susan	18–25	Female	HDSW	C	2
Stella	18–25	Female	HDSW	C	2
Tyler	18–25	Male	HDSW	C	2
Wyatt	18–25	Male	HDSW	C	2

HDSW: Higher Diploma in Social Work; A: Institute A; B: Institute B; C: Institute C.

A semi-structured guide was applied in the interviews for students. Examples of the questions asked are ‘What events or episodes made you feel impressed or had you struggling?’ and ‘Does your supervisor discuss these events and the associated social work values with you?’ Each interview was around 60 minutes and was recorded as well as transcribed. Prior to each interview, the researchers explained the objectives of the study and its procedures, and highlighted the anonymous nature of the study. Each participant signed a consent form.

Thematic analysis

This study applied the technique of thematic analysis in searching for data patterns and themes (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Thematic analysis is commonly used in descriptive studies with regard to a specific individual or group. The process of conducting the thematic analysis was as follows:

The team of researchers read each transcript and marked the specific observations within the data.

They discussed the observations and commented on the patterns and themes that were identified.

NVivo 12 was used to support the discovery of patterns and connections that was not possible manually.

The results of the data analysis were shared across the team, and a consensus was arrived at on the amount of the maximum themes and patterns being identified.

To safeguard the trustworthiness of the data analysis, member-checking by a team composed of three social work educators and two experienced social work practitioners and supervisors was frequently performed to test the interpretations and observations of the data. The researchers contacted the participants for follow-up questions or clarification of data if there was a need.

Findings

Feelings of ambivalence caused by some events or episodes in fieldwork

The difficult events students experienced in their fieldwork frequently involved conflicts of values and ethical dilemmas. These events caused struggles, ambivalent reactions and mixed feelings. Students then experienced indecisiveness and uncertainty. The value and ethical conflicts mentioned by the participants included protecting confidentiality, respecting the client’s right to self-determination, acceptance of the client, empowerment and equality.

Protecting confidentiality

Participants revealed that they had strong feeling when they were deciding whether to break confidentiality for the good of their clients.

During my first fieldwork placement, I met a group of primary school students with rebellious behavior. They believed me and told me some secrets. I was struggling whether I should tell the social worker of the youth center. (Wyatt)

When I was doing my fieldwork in an outreach night team, I met some delinquent youth. When I contacted them at night, I knew that they were doing something illegal. I didn’t know if I should keep it confidential for them or tell the social worker. (Candy)

Respect client’s right to self-determination

Participants generally believed that service users had the right to determine their own destiny. They considered self-determination as a human right. A conflict arose when a participant was puzzled as to why the behaviour of her client was irrational and when she felt it difficult to respect his right to self-determination.

During my fieldwork, I met an old man who insisted on taking care of his wife with dementia. I doubted whether he was able to take care of his wife. I was struggling to decide whether to respect his right to self-determination. (Bella)

During the fieldwork, I run a children group. I thought that I should respect the children’s right to choose. When he wanted to leave during the group session, I didn’t just say yes or no, but let him know what the procedure he needed to do and the consequences he had to bear. I let him to choose whether to stay or leave. (Roy)

During my fieldwork, I met a girl who often went out with her online friend[s]. I was worried that she would be sexually harassed or abused. But I still wanted to respect her choice, so I would tell her how to protect herself and how to refuse sexual demand[s]. (Olivia)

Acceptance of client

Participants generally agreed that acceptance of the clients by a social worker was one of the essential elements of the helping relationship. They viewed acceptance as a professional attitude and they needed to show genuine desire to help anyone who was in trouble. Conflicts arose when participants wondered whether they could accept the behaviour of the clients and show genuine desire to help them.

During my placement, I met a group of young people who had illegal drugs. They asked the social worker to drive them to a safe place. I was wondering if it was an illegal behavior to help them. But if the social worker refused them, it would damage the worker–client relationship. (Candy)

During my fieldwork, I encountered an elderly person with dementia who frequently quarrelled with residents of his elderly hostel. At first I found it difficult to accept his behavior, but later I accepted and understood his illness. Then I used group work method to help him. (Susan)

Empowerment

Participants expressed that equality and empowerment of vulnerable clients were important in the helping process. A conflict arose when a participant wondered whether he had to help an old father to exercise his right to choose between living at home or in an old age hostel.

During my placement, I met a lady who wanted to help her father apply for nursing home. But her father refused and he wanted to stay in his own house. Both father and daughter had their proper reasons. I encouraged the father to express his opinions and the daughter to observe his ability. (Roy)

Empowerment could be reflected in group activities. For example, in my group, there were differences in the abilities of children. I did something to create more opportunities for group members with different abilities to participate. I was struggling at first and not knowing what to do with empowerment, but later I succeeded in doing it. (Nick)

Equality

Recognizing diversity and adopting the principle of equality in professional social work practice were important. Conflict arose when a participant wondered whether she should respect the wishes of one hospital patient and grant him an equal opportunity to join in a hospital activity.

During my fieldwork practicum in a hospital, I encountered a patient in the ward who had foot pain. One day, I asked him if he would like to participate in an activity. He said he wanted to play with us. This made me feel that everyone should be treated fairly and equally and should not be deprived of the opportunity to participate because of his own physical health or inconvenience. (Ivy)

During my fieldwork, I did a project to interview prisoners. I heard their voices and needs. I was thinking about whether all lawbreakers had the right to strive for the quality of life in prison and whether they should all have their own human rights being protected? (Queen)

There were episodes that participants encountered in their fieldwork that made them feel unhappy, angry or uncomfortable. These situations would lead to disappointment and the struggles about the realities of practice and idealistic expectations.

Supervisory methods used by supervisors in discussion with students about the events and social work values

A variety of methods can be used by supervisors. As indicated by participants, the supervisory methods used by their supervisors such as the use of metaphors, case sharing, self-disclosure, short articles or students’ daily logs were used. The methods chosen by individual supervisors may vary according to the student’s personality and learning style. As indicated by participants, the methods used by supervisors suit their style and this helped alleviate their stress and feelings of ambivalence. Some students said that they prefer an indirect method such as reading short articles and discussion of these articles over directly discussing the issues that took place during fieldwork. This required supervisors to be sensitive to the individual preferences of the student.

Use of metaphors

Metaphors were used in supervision because it could help explain ideas and concepts by colourfully linking the abstract to a concrete process. For example, one participant said that her supervisor liked to explain to her that observing just the tiny changes in a client is not easy, but it is achievable like planting and observing a seed germinate and grow.

My supervisor shared with me with the use of a metaphor, which was interesting. He said, ‘When you begin planting, you don’t know whether the seed will grow. But we have to believe that it will grow and become a strong and beautiful plant’. Therefore, I began to observe client’s small changes. Then, I identify a lot of changes such as attitude and thinking, that may be unnoticeable before. (Susan)

My supervisor used a metaphor to talk to me about the patient’s dignity. The teacher said that if you were the patient, how would you like social workers to make you feel respected? (Ivy)

Use of case sharing

Sharing cases could help supervisors improve communication with their students, build more trusting relationships and enhance students’ interest in learning from supervisor’s past experiences.

My supervisor shared with me some related cases. I like her sharing because I can learn from her experiences. She said that she has good reflection from her past experiences in handling cases and this serves as a good reference for me to on how to handle my struggle in this case. (Queen)

When I had fieldwork placement at a nursing home, I faced elderly people in very weak physical condition. I was a young guy who had insufficient experience to establish a relationship with them in a short time. My supervisor taught me different methods and cited many case examples for me to take as a reference. (Wyatt)

Use of short articles

Reading short articles on topics related to the student’s fieldwork experiences can be a great way for students to explore their thinking, organize their ideas and generate more reflections.

My supervisor gave me some short articles to read. Then, he discussed these articles with me during the supervision session. He asked questions to facilitate my sharing of my personal values. This made me feel easy and comfortable about sharing. (Olivia)

The supervisor asked me what happened during the fieldwork, and then she would find some related articles for me. (George)

Use of daily log and reflective journal

Writing a daily log and reflective journal is a journey of reflection. A supervisor is able to see problems from the student’s daily log and can try to understand a situation that the student is facing.

My supervisor read my daily log and he used to pick up some points to discuss with me in supervision. He encouraged me to think more deeply about my personal values. (Candy)

When I was acting as a school social worker during my fieldwork, I heard students and teachers discuss some students with special behavioural problems. I wrote down these in my reflective journal. He [supervisor] suggested that I should make time for reflection. Think about whether my perception of those students would be affected by rumours. (Tyler)

Self-disclosure

Self-disclosure involved sharing the supervisor’s past experiences and personal life. The information shared with the students was relevant to students’ fieldwork experience. Students were more willing to share after they listened to the supervisors’ personal stories.

My supervisor shared with me her past working experiences. She shared similar struggle as I was experiencing. This facilitated my thinking and my self-reflection. I then got a wider perspective regarding the influences of my personal values in my practice. (Bella)

The supervisor might not have exactly the same experience, but she would find similar situations or share relevant experiences with me. (Peter)

Expectations of students

Participants revealed some expectations that the students have of their supervisors. They expected their supervisors to be more open and respectful of their feelings and thoughts.

During my fieldwork, I met a lady who was sexually assaulted. I was worried that she would be discriminated because of her assault. My supervisor patiently guided me to think about the harm of sexual assault to a lady. (Stella)

Some participants revealed their positive experiences with their supervisors. They felt that they were respected, and they were eager to share their feelings of ambivalence with their supervisors.

My supervisor spent a lot of time listening to my stories first. I felt that I was being respected. My trust with my supervisor was developed and I was eager to share more about my doubtful feelings about the social work values. (Daisy)

In addition, some participants mentioned that the sensitivity of supervisors towards the ambivalence of students was essential.

My supervisor is very smart and reacts to situations very quickly. She is sensitive to my feelings and struggles. She actively picks some events and discusses them with me during supervision. After that, she asks me questions and guides me to think about possible solutions. (Emma)

Most importantly, participants said that it was not easy for them to express their true feelings, struggles, thoughts and ideas in front of their supervisors. They did not feel confident enough to show how they felt unless a trusting supervisory relationship had been established.

Regarding the supervisory relationship, the students think that if the supervisory relationship is not good, they will feel unsafe and unwilling to share their inner struggles with the supervisor.

In my second fieldwork, I met a supervisor who was subjective and rarely listened to my thoughts and feelings. He just told me how to deal with the conflicting issue, but on many occasions, I didn’t want to use his suggestions. My relationship with the supervisor is not good and I feel uncomfortable telling him my internal struggle. (Queen)

Therefore, the students expressed that a supportive supervisory relationship was a prerequisite for them to express and feel being accepted. The nature of supervisory relationship was supportive.

My supervisor expressed support for my views, which made me feel that many things can be discussed with her. She was willing to spend time with me to talk about the difficulties of fieldwork or what I have encountered. These experiences gradually established our relationship. I feel that my difficulties are understood by the supervisor. (Olivia)

I think the relationship between the supervisor and the student needed tolerance and acceptance. If the supervisor only focused on the transfer of knowledge and requirements for grades and academic scores, students would be afraid of not expressing their inner struggles and contradictions. Moreover, they would fear that they would not be accepted by the teacher, which will finally affect their grades. (King)

Discussion

Fieldwork plays an important role in social work education. The fieldwork events and the episodes encountered by the students are largely relational. The events faced by the students were grounded in their fieldwork’s context and this required an integrative reflection on these experiences during supervision (O’Donoghue and Tsui, 2012). The supervisors’ perspectives and attitudes in reacting to the ambivalence of students revealed how sensitive supervisors reflexively use different methods when engaging in the interactional process of supervision. However, some participants revealed that their supervisors showed irrelevant, insensitive and inappropriate responses to their needs.

In addition, the findings reveal that the development of the professional identity is strongly related to the supervisory relationship and the students’ satisfaction with their supervisors. This research result is consistent with the findings revealed by Shlomo et al. (2012). Supervision is discovered to be an important setting that enables students to rethink and reflect on the experiences that may facilitate their growth in the process of becoming a professional worker. It is also necessary to take into account that students expected their supervisors to be more open and respectful. This also raises questions regarding whether guidelines for supervisors are needed for dealing with these conflicting and ambivalent situations that their students face. The findings may have implications for the demand to adopt a more emotionally interactive approach to supervision in fieldwork.

When supervisors encounter situations in students’ fieldwork practice that elicit a student’s emotion, this could be a self-differentiation issue and a process of professional socialization (Bogo, 2010). Ambivalent events and episodes in fieldwork serve as a driving force in the development of the student’s professional identity because this requires a process of internalization of the social work values in an individual’s own beliefs and self-concept (Adams and Hean, 2006). Professional identity is a social worker’s professional self-concept. Students are affected by the events but they also influence the events through their thoughts and behaviour (Johnson and Yanca, 2001). For example, a participant in this study called Bella had always believed that she could respect the client’s right to self-determination because the importance of the client’s self-determination had been emphasized in her social work study. But when she saw an old and frail man who insisted on keeping his wife with dementia at home, her emotions were affected and she wondered whether she should respect the client’s self-determination or not. Of course, more importantly, Bella will question what professional social workers are and even question whether professional social workers should comply with the value of client self-determination at all times. Through the trusting relationship with the supervisor, Bella understood that her supervisor faced similar struggles in the past as well. This facilitated her self-reflection and she learnt to differentiate between feelings and thoughts.

Towards an emotionally interactive approach to supervision in fieldwork

Results from this study form the basis for an emergent emotionally interactive approach for supervision in fieldwork (Figure 1). This emergent approach concerns the following:

How supervision sessions can function as an emotionally safe space that promotes the student’s reflection.

How supervision can produce a positive impact on a student’s emotional well-being.

How supervision can become more interactive sessions that facilitate emotional expression and management of feelings.

Figure 1.

An emergent emotionally interactive approach for supervision in fieldwork.

The literature suggests that supervisors have to respect individual differences in supervision expectations and learning styles (Brookfield, 2005). With reference to the interactive model developed by Shulman (2010), the model stresses the importance of the emotions of the supervisee, the interaction process between the supervisor and the supervisee and the building of the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee in supervision. The proposed emotionally interactive approach for supervision shifts traditional focus from the content of educational focus of fieldwork supervision to the emotional aspects and the role of the supervisor in offering emotional support in times of emotional disturbance and the continued ambivalence felt by the students in fieldwork practice. This is compatible with the suggestions given by other researchers that supervisors have to develop sensitivity in their attitude towards supervisees (O’Donoghue and Tsui, 2012) and towards the needs and emotions of supervisees (Hawkins and Shohet, 2012). The essential elements of genuineness and empathy are highly recommended in an emotionally supportive supervisory relationship (Watkins and Scaturo, 2013). In addition, the process of discussion resembles a reflective supervision process. It is similar to a cyclic reflective process as indicated by Kolb (1984). It requires students to engage in reflection on a fieldwork activity, to have consideration of the values, different options and solutions, and then to understand how final action is implemented. In addition, a reflective discussion process is similar to the reflective looping as proposed by Bogo and Vayda (1998). First, the process starts from retrieval of experienced events and the recall of associated feelings and thoughts. Second, personal internal reactions can be reflected and examined. Third, these personal experienced events and internal feelings have to be acknowledged and understood by supervisors. Details of the emotionally interactive approach for supervision in fieldwork consist of 3Ps. They are as follows:

Perceived safe and trusting supervisory relationship,

Process of supportive supervision,

Positive and accepting attitudes of supervisors.

Perceived safe and trusting supervisory relationship

A perceived safe and trusting supervisory relationship is the prerequisite for the students to open themselves up and to share all their ambivalent feelings caused by events or episodes during fieldwork, as well as their thoughts and struggles. Even the events that happened in the fieldwork practice are contradictory, hidden, difficult to tell or different from the values of the supervisors. Actually, conflicting and ambivalent situations the students face in fieldwork can serve as a driving force for the development of professional identity.

Process of supportive supervision

The process of cultivating a supportive supervision session involves two parts. The first part is the process of discussion. Supervisors have to collect information about events or episodes causing value or ethical conflicts in the fieldwork practice. Examples of questions to be asked are as follows: ‘Which conflicts did you encounter in fieldwork?’, ‘Which persons were involved in the conflicting events or episodes?’ and ‘What are the potential solutions to the conflicts?’ In addition, the supervisors are sensitive to the ambivalent feelings and struggles of their students during the process. The second part is the process of using different kinds of methods to facilitate discussion and reflection. Methods vary according to the student’s learning style.

Positive and accepting attitudes of supervisors

Positive and accepting attitudes include a respectful, genuine and empathetic attitude towards students’ different learning styles, supervision expectations and the emotions and thoughts caused by the events and episodes encountered in fieldwork.

To conclude, the emergent emotionally interactive approach for supervision has the potential to contribute to the development of emotional intelligence in supervisory practice. Such competencies of emotional intelligence and sensitivity can be developed further in future research studies.

Conclusion

The main strength of this study is that the participants are from three different higher education institutions in Hong Kong that offer the HDSW programme. The limitation of the study is that the voices and experiences of the supervisors are excluded. The perceptions of the students may be subjective and cannot reveal the whole picture of the supervision process. Future studies should include different perspectives from supervisors, agency social workers and fieldwork students.

In summary, the first theme of this study is the ambivalent feelings caused by certain events or episodes during fieldwork. The difficult events that the students experienced in their fieldwork frequently involved value conflicts and ethical dilemmas. The second theme is the methods used by supervisors in discussing with students about the events and social work values embedded in the conflicting episodes. A variety of methods revealed by the participants include the use of metaphors, case sharing, self-disclosure, short articles or students’ daily logs. The third theme is the expectations of students towards their supervisors. They expect a more open and respectful supervision session and the establishment of a trusting supervisory relationship. These themes lay the groundwork for the proposed emotionally interactive approach for supervision in fieldwork. The approach consists of 3Ps, that is, ‘perceived safe and trusting supervisory relationship’, ‘process of supportive supervision’ and ‘positive and accepting attitudes of supervisors’. The new emergent approach can be developed further in future research studies.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The first author is an associate editor of International Social Work.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author(s) received the CPCE Research Fund, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, awarded to Wai Hung Wallace Tsang for the research, authorship, and /or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Kitty Yuen-han Mo

Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung

Author biographies

Kitty Yuen-han Mo writes extensively in the area of social work supervision, social work service in Mainland China and on children with special education needs and their parents.

Wallace Wai-hung Tsang is currently managing fieldwork education for social work students and provides coaching for social work educators and practitioners in fieldwork education. He conducts research on supervision skills in fieldwork education and actively develops pedagogies in fieldwork education.

Evan Yee-Wan Wong was part-time lecturer in the Caritas Institute of Higher Education (CIHE). She has offered counselling services to marginal youth, school drop-out students, children with special educational needs and elderly who have suffered strokes or with mental health problems.

Lai Hung Sing is a frontline social worker working for the poor in the community. He is passionate about studying social work values and the impact of managerialism on the social work profession.

Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to joining academia, he was responsible for children, youth and community development work on the frontline.

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