Supervision is a strategic withdrawal to meditate, contemplate and think about our work. In the attention to and the reflection on, we learn how to do our work differently and better.

That’s the purpose of supervision: it’s a `respectful interruption’ of our work to set up reflective dialogues through which we learn from the very work we do. It’s about paying attention to our practice.

When talking about the role of supervisors, Carroll states “Supervisors facilitate reflective practice as a method of learning from experience and support supervisees to return to work renewed with new insights, shifts and transformations.”  The end result of the process is transformational learning which is the learning that changes mindsets, values, meanings and perspectives that in turn lead to new behaviours.

Reflection is the `ability to step back and pose hard questions about: why are things done this way? How could I do it differently?’ Reflection means stepping back from an experience or an event so that I can gain a new perspective on what I have done. The author states “Reflection is the ability to think about the past, in the present for the future.”

(Quotes from Michael Carroll in Supervision as Transformation: A Passion for Learning edited by Robin Shohet)