Promoting psychological safety
Standard 5: Supervision
Supervision
A series of tools and resources designed to guide improvements and support positive organisational development against this employer standard.
Promoting psychological safety in organisations
Employer standard 5: Supervision highlighted the critical role of organisational culture in promoting trust, inclusivity, learning, and reflexivity in supervision. Psychological safety is an important basis to such a culture.
A research study (Barron in References) shows the importance of psychological safety in providing the best supervision conditions and supporting reflective conversations.
Social work practitioners need to feel psychologically safe at individual, team and organisational levels. They prefer to engage in open discussions about their work. This will aid them to contribute to informed decision-making, reflect on errors, and manage complex emotions.
To achieve psychological safety you need to be able to understand structural barriers such as racism. Employer standard 5: Supervision identified that many UK minority group practitioners do not feel safe at work due to microaggressions and racism.
In this light, anti-racist practice is central to supervision (Bernard in References) emphasises engaging with employees to understand the psychological impact of racism.
To build psychological safety and trust, supervisors demonstrate compassionate curiosity and work to eliminate organisational barriers perpetuating racial inequalities.
Steps to create a psychologically safe organisation
Here are some suggestions for steps you could take in your organisation to promote psychological safety.
Conduct a psychological safety audit
To understand psychological safety in teams or organisations, ask if:
- someone makes a mistake in a team, will it be used against them?
- people feel comfortable raising problems and challenging issues?
- people reject others for being different?
- it feels safe for practitioners to take risks?
When answering these questions, it may be helpful to pose secondary questions such as: “if not, why not?” or “If so, why is this?”. The answers can help determine the actions required to tackle any issues or enhance psychological safety in your organisation.
Promote psychological safety using the following strategies
Create opportunities for learning from successes as well as from mistakes and critical incidents. As employers, use opportunities to learn from both successes as well as critical incidents or when things go wrong.
Ensure there are opportunities to hear diverse opinions
Show compassionate curiosity by acknowledging any challenging emotions, asking probing, open-ended questions to hear diverse opinions, and by responding with compassion to others. Encourage individuals and teams to view feedback as a way of strengthening ideas and processes, rather than criticism.
Dialogue and mindful listening
Encourage dialogue and active participation to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute. This involves emphasising the value of diverse perspectives while also understanding that silence can communicate valuable insights.
Acknowledge that managing conflicts with curiosity is essential for open dialogue. Examples to aid communication are outlined later in this resource and include conflict management and attentive listening skills.
Create organisational trust
Trust is crucial for psychological safety, but it can be complex and fragile. There are three distinct but interconnected kinds of trust in workplaces, these are:
- strategic trust in leaders which requires confidence in their ability to make the right decisions
- personal trust in one’s own manager and if they are seen to treat workers fairly and consider their needs when making decisions
- organisational trust, which requires confidence that processes are well-designed and fair
Create an inclusive sense of belonging
A sense of belonging in the workplace is central to our feelings of security and commitment to an organisation. Employers might prioritise encouraging this sense of belonging to create a psychologically safe culture that allows high-quality reflective supervision.
Recognising strengths in others improves empathy, which in turn promotes respect for diversity and appreciation of individual talents. Establishing a safe, non-judgemental space is essential to create a sense of belonging. Stigmatisation and microaggressions can contribute to a toxic work environment and create uncertainty about belonging.
Further information on psychological safety in relation to employee wellbeing is available in the resource for Employer standard 4: Wellbeing.
Psychological safety requires continuous nurturing and development
When taking steps to enhance psychological safety do acknowledge that it is not a fixed state and requires ongoing attention. Leaders could continuously monitor the organisational climate and ask for feedback from employees.
Leaders can then make adjustments when needed to ensure that psychological safety is maintained and strengthened over time.
Creating a culture of high support and high challenge
A culture of high support and high expectations creates optimal supervision conditions. A ‘no-blame’ culture allows practitioners to make decisions and take responsibility for their actions. However, emotional responses can make communication difficult during conflict. Using compassionate curiosity to explore others' perspectives with kindness can allow more compassionate conflict responses.
Managing conflict and disagreement
Leaders spend a significant portion of their time resolving workplace conflict. While some conflict is beneficial, too much can harm employees’ wellbeing and performance. Approaching conflict with compassionate curiosity. Leaders could:
- acknowledge negative emotions in themselves and others?
- be curious, kind, and compassionate without point-scoring?
- encourage people to problem-solve together?
Effective decision making
Making effective and defensible decisions is a crucial aspect of supervision. There are many resources available to support defensible decision-making (see Research in Practice in References).
One important consideration is whether an organisation's policy and approach to supervision promote reflective, curious, and analytical discussions. This can clarify how supervision supports defensible decision-making.
Another aspect to examine is whether training for new supervisors helps them understand their role in defensible decision-making during supervision.
Organisations could provide training and support to develop supervisors’ skills in facilitating reflective and analytical discussions. Practice supervisors could experiment with different models and approaches that support defensible decision-making in supervision.
Supervisors need opportunities to reflect on their role in promoting defensible decision-making and review ongoing skill development during their own line management supervision.
It is equally important that supervisors are regularly observed while conducting supervision and receive feedback on how to improve the quality of their discussions. Supervisors need protected time to reflect on defensible decision-making, work through dilemmas and consider how they can continue to grow.
Effective performance management
Supervision provides opportunities for enhancing effective practice. However, there is a risk it might become overly focused on tasks, neglecting critical reflection on how work might be improved. Supporting supervisors in transitioning from ‘talking and tasking’ to reflective approaches is challenging but crucial.
Exercising compassionate curiosity by having frank conversations is essential in supervision. Engaging in such conversations relies on transparency regarding the role, function, and quality of reflective supervision. Sharing examples from reflective supervision quality assessments can help build effective supervisory performance.
Preparing an opening statement when raising a concern can clarify thinking and encourage individuals to view feedback as a constructive tool rather than as criticism. For example: “I’d like to swap views with you about [the issue]. I appreciate that this might be difficult or uncomfortable, but I am willing to listen with an open mind. Then we could do some problem solving together. How does that sound to you?”
Trauma-informed supervision
Supervision should provide a safe reflective space for social work practitioners to manage the emotional impact of their work.
Working with people who have experienced trauma, loss, grief, separation, or abuse requires a reflective space to process these experiences. Such experiences can cause anxiety and fear, and practitioners may find themselves over-empathising with service users or feeling emotionally manipulated.
It is vital for practitioners to recognise the need to reflect on and process their emotional responses to service users. This will help them to avoid compassion fatigue or burnout.
Practitioners also bring personal experiences that may resurface during their work. Treisman (see Reference) offers approaches to trauma-informed supervision that support practitioners to deal with trauma both personally and professionally.
Reflective questions for supervisors
Here are some examples of reflective questions for supervisors to ask themselves.
Relationship-focused
Am I:
- enabling a relational approach in my supervisory practice, and is there trust and openness?
- asking supervisees if they feel safe to share their worries and anxieties?
Integration and connection
Do I:
- make sure the practitioners I supervise feel supported by other team members and the wider organisation?
- as a supervisor, encourage collaborative learning and sharing of ideas?
Acknowledging and celebrating strengths and skills
Do I:
- know the strengths of my supervisees?
- appreciate and celebrate their success?
Cultural humility and responsiveness
Do I:
- approach supervision with a good understanding of the intersection of multiple identities (for example, gender, race, age, sexuality, and ability)?
- reflect on my own power and privilege?
- create space for reflection in self and others around unconscious biases?
Communication, collaboration, and transparency
Do I:
- make sure the language I use in supervision is respectful, balanced, non-judgmental, and sensitive?
Compassion, empathy and reflectiveness
Do I:
- create space to discuss the emotional impact of the work with practitioners?
- approach supervision with compassionate curiosity?
Next page: Developing leadership
References
Ahmed, S. Relational & Anti-racist Supervision form overview. (2022). BASW.
Barron, C. C., Dayton, C. J., & Goletz, J. L. (2022). From the voices of supervisees: What is reflective supervision and how does it support their work? (Part I). Infant Mental Health Journal, 43(2), 207-225.
Bernard, C. (2020). Addressing barriers to the progression of black and minority ethnic social workers to senior leadership roles. Research in Practice Knowledge Briefing.
Bostock, L. (2023). What do we know about multi-agency meetings to address extra-familial harm? In Firmin, C., & Lloyd, J. (Eds.), Contextual safeguarding: The next chapter (pp. 132-146). Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Christian, K. (2020). Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life. Columbus: American Negotiation Institute LLC.
Delizonna, L. (2017). High-performing teams need psychological safety. Here’s how to create it. Harvard Business Review.
Ofsted. (2011). High expectations, high support, and high challenge: Protecting children more effectively through better support for front-line social workers.
Research in Practice. (2020). Defensible decision-making in children’s social care: Challenge questions for leaders.
Treisman, K. (n.d.). Trauma Informed Supervision.
Walton, G., & Cohen, G. (2007). A question of belonging: race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82-96. What Works Centre. (2022).
The resources have been developed by
Research in Practice
in collaboration with
DfE.
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 27 February 2025
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 27 February 2025