How practice supervisors can maintain curiosity in practice

By now you will have a clearer sense of how you might want to develop your professional curiosity. Here is a list of practical ways to encourage a curious approach to understanding oneself, others, and your work context. These suggestions aim to help you maintain curiosity while:

staying aligned with core values
building strong relationships
advocating for the best interests of children and families

These are separated into suggestions that will benefit you, your team, and your work with wider stakeholders.

Which of the activities below do you think you, your supervisees and service would most benefit from doing? Select one from each section that you would like to experiment with.

Values exploration exercise

Thinking about yourself

Explore the role your personal values play in your leadership by:

asking yourself "What are my core values?" and "How do these values inform my decisions and actions at work?"
writing down examples of when you aligned with or strayed from these values in practice
taking this to supervision and discussing with your supervisor how these values should guide future decisions, particularly in challenging situations

Reflective leadership journaling

Keep a leadership journal where you regularly reflect on your language and behaviour. Prompts could include, "How did my communication style impact my team today?" or "What could I do differently to better support my supervisees?"

Thinking about your team

Curiosity prompts and open-ended questions: "what don’t we know?"

Experiment by starting every supervision session by asking, "What don’t we know yet about this case?" or "What questions remain unanswered?" Encourage supervisees to list unknowns and brainstorm ways to obtain that information.

Exploring intersectionality in your work with children and families

Introduce the concept of intersectionality during case discussions and ask supervisees to explore how distinct aspects of a family's identity intersect and impact their experiences. These aspects might include ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status, for instance.

Questions could include, "How do different aspects of this family’s identity intersect to create unique challenges?" and "What additional supports or considerations are needed to address these intersections?"

Thinking about the wider system

Leadership reflection circles

Organise regular reflection circles with other practice supervisors where you can all discuss your leadership experiences, challenges, and strategies for maintaining stable leadership. Discussion questions could include, "What leadership qualities are essential in children’s social care?" and "How can we create stability in our teams during times of change?"

Curiosity in multi-agency meetings: a step-by-step activity

Pre-meeting: have supervisees review a multi-agency case study and prepare curiosity-driven questions, focusing on different agency contributions and gaps in knowledge.
During the meeting: assign a "curiosity champion" to challenge assumptions and ensure deep exploration. Encourage a "perspective swap" where supervisees consider the case from other agencies' viewpoints.
During the meeting: use the "Why?" chain to dig deeper into decision-making by asking "Why?" repeatedly to uncover underlying assumptions.
Post-meeting: conduct a debrief to reflect on new insights and create a ’Curiosity Action Plan’ to address remaining questions and follow-up actions.

Over to you

Now that you’ve reviewed these activities, choose one from each section that you would like to experiment with. You can use the 4C leadership capability framework action plan to detail when and where you’ll try these out and reflect on their impact over time.

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The resources have been developed by Frontline in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 January 2025
Last updated: 30 January 2025

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