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Connecticut Department of Children & Families

Strengthening Supervision Initiative

Overview

Strengthening supervision within the Connecticut Department of Children and Families has emerged as a major priority among the Six Cross Cutting Themes articulated by the agency’s leadership team. With support from Casey Family Programs, DCF has engaged faculty from the Yale Program on Supervision to provide a learning experience and consultation on this topic to supervisors throughout the agency.

Yale has created a model for strengthening supervisor competencies and shaping supervision practice in health and human service organizations. Early phases of this work occurred in Connecticut under a federally funded initiative that supported competency development and organizational change in supervision practice in a dozen child, youth, and adult serving organizations. The work has expanded to encompass multiple state agencies, hospitals, correctional facilities, and community organizations. It has been implemented broadly in Washington, DC and in selected organizations across the country. Program evaluation findings have demonstrated significant increases in participant ratings of their competence as supervisors. Satisfaction with the learning experience among supervisors and agency leaders has been very high.

The Model

The Yale model is built around four core functions of supervision:

  • Quality of Service: Ensuring basic standards, while striving to maximize effectiveness.
  • Administration: Efficiently managing the myriad of administrative tasks, achieving compliance, and maximizing productivity.
  • Professional Development: Using supervision and other learning opportunities to continually build the skills of the individuals supervised.
  • Support: Developing trusting relationships that provide supervisees with the practical and emotional support necessary to carry out their difficult jobs.

A Program Tailored for DCF

Middle managers in the organization have been identified as the key individuals within DCF who shape supervision practice and the provision of services. A priority has been placed on bringing these individuals together in groups to discuss the state of supervision within DCF and to strengthen it. The specific objectives are to:

  • Provide information on effective practices in supervision.
  • Promote the sharing of best practices among these managers, fostering peer learning.
  • Assist DCF managers in strengthening their supervision skills.
  • Help managers clarify the educational needs of Supervisors in their offices, who will receive training and consultation in a subsequent phase of this initiative.
  • Assist managers in identifying strategies to foster an organizational culture within DCF that values and supports effective supervision.

Content

Over the course of this two-daylearning experience, managers will explore a number of supervision topics. These include:

  • An informed consent approach to establishing supervisory relationships, setting forth roles and responsibilities.
  • Practical strategies for achieving the four core supervisory functions: quality of service, administration, professional development, and support.
  • Approaches to “managing from the middle” of organizations: serving as a link between agency leadership and front line staff; communicating administration’s goals to staff and providing feedback from staff and clients to administration; translating agency goals into practical guidance for staff; and leading from the middle of the agency in a time of change.
  • Group supervision techniques.
  • A problem solving model for assessing difficulties in supervision and crafting an intervention plan.
  • Constructive supervisory responses when “bad things happen”.
  • Self-care for supervisors.

The Faculty

The training and consultation will be provided by Michael Hoge, PhD and Scott Migdole, MSW who are faculty members at Yale responsible for managing a broad array health and human services for adolescents and adults. They direct a Yale Leadership Program and have extensive experience as supervisors, consultants, and trainers.

For Further Information

For further information contact Jodi Hill-Lilly at .