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Cited by 21Social Work Education and PracticeChild Welfare and AdoptionSocial Sciences and Policies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Why does systemic supervision support practitioners’ practice more effectively with children and families?

Open access
Bostock, Lisa, Patrizio, Louis, Godfrey, Tessa, Forrester, Donald·2022·Children and Youth Services Review
DOI 10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106652
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Abstract

The importance of supervision for social work practice is widely accepted. This paper focuses on one type of supervision: systemic group supervision or “systemic supervision”. Systemic social work practice is generally a group-based, multi-disciplinary model of service delivery that aims to work therapeutically with the whole family. Central to this model is the use of systemically-informed group supervision. This has been shown to impact positively on the quality of direct practice with families, but what is it about this type of supervision that supports frontline practitioners to practice more skillfully? This paper is based on interviews with 49 frontline staff across five children’s services departments in the UK. It identifies the key features of systemic supervision and explores why workers think that developing shared understandings of risk to children supports them to intervene more effectively with families in contact with children’s services. These findings contribute to a growing body of knowledge about the practice shaping function of supervision within child and family social work.

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  • Systemic supervision provides alternative ways of viewing complex cases, changing inside and outside the therapy room, and effective interventions with families.

    “Another article examined the importance of systemic supervision in providing alternative ways of viewing complex cases, changing inside and outside the therapy room, and effective interventions with families (Bostock et al., 2022).”

    From Seeing Double: A Case Study Examining Systemic Supervision and Therapy Conceptualization of Identical Twins (2026) · cites this paper as Bostock et al., 2022

    The paper says systemic supervision helps practitioners develop alternative perspectives on complex cases (Implications and conclusions, p. 7), and describes planning more purposeful interventions with families (section 5.5, p. 6). But it studies child and family social-work supervision and practice, not change inside and outside a therapy room; its conclusions describe practitioners’ reported potential for change rather than establishing intervention effectiveness. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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  • More experienced therapists demonstrated greater capacity to incorporate multilevel systemic processes, including first-, second-, and third-order change strategies.

    “More experienced therapists demonstrated greater capacity to incorporate multilevel systemic processes, including first-, second-, and third-order change strategies (Bostock et al., 2022).”

    From Seeing Double: A Case Study Examining Systemic Supervision and Therapy Conceptualization of Identical Twins (2026) · cites this paper as Bostock et al., 2022

    The discussion of managing risk (section 5.3, p. 5) describes social work practitioners shifting from first-order to second-order approaches. It does not compare practitioners by experience or describe third-order change strategies; section 5.6 (p. 6) instead says most respondents were relatively new to systemic social work practice. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Citations

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Research works printed but not linked: 37

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Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Bostock, L., Patrizio, L., Godfrey, T., & Forrester, D.
Affiliations
  • University of Bedfordshire (GB)
  • Cardiff University (GB)
Corresponding author
Bostock, Lisa
ORCID
Venue
Children and Youth Services Review
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2022-11
Volume
142
Pages
106652
ISSN
0190-7409 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106652
OpenAlex
W4293522441
Cited by
21
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3
FWCI
4.69
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Children and Youth Services Review (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (University of Greenwich) (acceptedVersion)
  • ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (acceptedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • University of Bedfordshire Repository (University of Bedfordshire) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Public Administration › Social Work Education and Practice
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Child Welfare and Adoption
  • Social Sciences › General Social Sciences › Social Sciences and Policies
Keywords
systemic supervision, child and family social work, children's services, frontline practitioners, family intervention

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