6.1 Chapter Overview
This chapter provides a look at the relationship between you and your supervisor at the internship site. Along with their other professional responsibilities, this individual may be the director of the agency, a department head, or simply a staff member whose duties include helping interns learn about the work along with all their other professional responsibilities. For our purposes, the supervisor is the person who works with you most at the agency. The supervisor is generally the one with whom the instructor communicates about your performance or evaluations. This chapter also discusses setting goals for an internship, managing conflicting goals should they arise, and understanding the purpose of assessment.
Internships are an efficient and effective way of learning because they provide professional guidance. Often, supervisors can work one-on-one with you in ways that are compatible with your learning style, which is more difficult to achieve in a classroom environment. Although coursework gives you an idea of what to expect, it is the guided experience that turns theory into knowledge and knowledge into ability. This fieldwork setting is like a laboratory where you can test ideas and techniques without, hopefully, your experiment “blowing up” in your or your client’s face. Similarly, supervised experience allows you to test theoretical concepts and perspectives in a real-world environment and determine which techniques work best. The supervisory experience provides you with a model for developing your own style as a helping professional; the challenges and opportunities you encounter during the internship process can help you clarify your goals and understand how to use constructive feedback for professional development.
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
- Develop your own goals for supervision
- Describe the elements of professional supervision
- Formulate a plan for a successful supervisory relationship
- Exhibit the ability to incorporate feedback and advocate for oneself
Preview of Key Terms
- Constructive criticism: feedback designed to help the listener improve their performance.
- Learning agreement: the contract created by the field instructor, the student, and the supervisor that outlines the student’s learning outcomes for the term.
- Managing up: the practice of using the traits of the identified leader to help you be productive.
- Self-advocacy: the ability to speak up for one’s desires and needs.
- Supervisory style: the manner in which a supervisor is most comfortable interacting with interns.
Chapter Overview Licenses and Attributions
“Chapter Overview” is adapted from “Using Supervision Effectively” in Succeeding at Your Internship: A Handbook Written for and with Students by Christopher J. Mruk and John C. Moor, Bowling Green State University Libraries. This work is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0. Edited for style and clarity by Yvonne M. Smith LCSW.
“Learning Objectives” by Yvonne M. Smith LCSW is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
A credit class in which students apply theory to practice by using what you have learned in coursework in a real-world setting with a supervisor/mentor who is invested in your growth and development (often also referred to as fieldwork or practicum).
(or internship/practicum) experiential learning contained within human services programs. For the purposes of this text, fieldwork, internship, and practicum will be used interchangeably.