Clinical supervision, as defined by The Royal College of Nursing, is “an activity that brings skilled supervisors and practitioners together in order to reflect upon their practice. It is a time to think about knowledge and skills and how they may be developed to improve care”. Whilst clinical supervision has been widely used in the NHS and is now used in other occupational areas such as probation and social work, there has also been increasing interest in using it in supported housing.

Riverside operate over 150 supported services across the country either addressing or preventing homelessness and often working with individuals with complex needs and behaviours. We work to support our customers back into mainstream society and the purpose of this project was to pilot a clinical supervision approach supporting our staff in their day to day work across a number of Riverside services and our national geography.
 
Riverside undertook a pilot rolling out Clinical Supervision to services across the country.

Utilising a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, our evaluation concluded that the pilots have been very successful. That they have demonstrated a positive impact on the staff who have participated in them. Staff feel better supported and many can point to improvements in wellbeing, morale, confidence, professional practices, retention and absences.
 
As well as rolling out this practice across all our services we are also keen to share our experiences and findings as best practice across the sector and you can find out more in our two documents below. If you would like to know more about this project, please contact Liz Turner, Head of Quality and Compliance at [email protected]